Traditional Chinese Families
"The internal working of a Chinese village may be studied from various points of view, but the most convenient method is to study it from the three centres of union:…
From: 1915 C.E. To: 1915 C.E.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“The Internal Working of the Village,” part one, from Village and Town Life in China by Y.K. Liang and Li Kung Tao, 1915.
The Family
The internal working of a Chinese village may be studied from various points of view, but the most convenient method is to study it from the three centres of union: the family, the ancestral hall, and the village temple.
The Chinese family is described as based on the patriarchal system, i.e., having the father as the head of the family and each family constituting an independent social unit. This is theoretically true; but it is an extremely inadequate description and needs a great amount of qualification. In theory the father of the family is supreme in his authority. In practice, however, the mother is the centre of domestic life. She rules and controls the family.
The father, as far as the internal working of the family is concerned, retains merely a theoretical power. Thus it is the mother who generally decides such important questions as when the child is to begin schooling. She finds the bride or the husband for the children respectively, and arranges all the matters concerning their betrothals. She manages all the business of the home and directs all the social and extremely punctilious relations with friends and kin. She sees that all the ceremonies such as those of marriage, birth, and death, the proper degree of respect due from one member of the family to another, the regular keeping of festivals, etc., are duly observed according to the "Chia-li-pu," i.e., a book of family laws both moral and ceremonial peculiar to each family.
Thus it is very far from the truth to imagine that in Chinese life the position of woman is low. On the contrary, woman occupies in our actual life a very exalted position. The mother of the family is on an equal footing with the father. Thus an equal amount of respect and degree of mourning are due to either of them from the other members of the family, and in their mutual relations the wife is in no way inferior to the husband. The part played by the mother of the family necessarily differs from that played by the father. By a wise division of labour she controls the internal affairs of the home while the father occupies himself mainly with the duties of earning a livelihood for the family and maintaining the honour of his ancestors.
The family multiplies as the children grow up and marry. It is not uncommon for the joint household to consist of four or five generations, or, if we include collaterals, of from ten to fifteen groups. The increase of numbers depends, of course, upon the fecundity of the parents, but adoption is allowed if there is no offspring. The Chinese are, as a rule, disinclined to allow a line to die out; and it is important to note that not only the perpetuation of the family but the continuation of the direct line requires adoption.
In higher circles concubinage may be tolerated merely for the purpose of rearing the young, but adoption would appear to be more prevalent. The fear of a line's discontinuance is doubtless involved in the cult of ancestor-worship, since the ghost must needs be served with offerings by the descendants; or, in the words of the Chinese, “the hun-soul must be appeased."
There is, moreover, the economic factor to be reckoned with, for the son, or sometimes even the daughter, provides support for the parents when they become advanced in age. The son-in-law is generally called “half-son" in relation to the parents-in-law. Public opinion (not law) obliges him to support his parents-in-law if they are left without children and are in want. These two considerations, religious and economic, explain why marriage and the upbringing of offspring become a duty incumbent upon every Chinese who is normally fit for marriage; and as the young people do not make betrothals themselves, the duty falls upon the parents.
In a village the well-to-do family is a rare exception, and the typical family is the working-class family. The father is, as a rule, a husbandman, and the sons follow his footsteps. If they do not possess a piece of land of their own they cultivate either the land of the ancestral hall, of the village temple, or that of any private owner. The mother, daughters, and daughters-in-law do the household work together, and also add considerably to the family income by such employment as may be carried on in the home. The earnings of all the members of the family are given to the mother in a hotch-potch for the maintenance of the corporate whole.
The family from our point of view is a living organism which possesses a spirit quite apart from the individuals who form it. Each member does not live and work for himself, but for the family to which he belongs. Every other member has a claim on his earnings. Thus in its economic aspect the Chinese family is not unlike the monastic system of Christianity, in which anyone's earnings are for the good of all. So a sort of socialism is practised within the family, while at the same time the system does not sacrifice the individual. Unlike the Roman patriarchal family, all the minor members of the Chinese family are persons and not chattels, whose rights and duties are well defined.
It is sometimes said that our family system drags down the individual from self-development. This is to judge the working of an Eastern system by the logic of the West. With us self-development is by no means sacrificed for the good of the family. In fact, from our point of view, the good of the family demands self-development. "The tranquillity and happiness of the world depends on rightly governed states. A rightly governed state necessitates well-regulated families. A well-regulated family is made possible only by the self-culture of the individuals composing it." (The Great Learning.)
The family is collectively and directly responsible for the crimes of each member. The amount of responsibility varies according to the nature of the crime. In certain serious cases such as treason, the crime of one member may bring even capital punishment upon the whole family irrespective of the sex or age of the members. This extreme principle of vicarious punishment was in force up to comparatively recent times. The existence of such a ruthless principle may be accounted for by the presumption that the misdeeds of an individual are due to the connivance or negligence of his family. Another reason may be that crimes are believed to be largely the result of heredity and domestic environment. Hence the punishment must strike the evil at its root. It is indeed a most effective but terrible deterrent.
Incidentally it may be mentioned here the great importance we attach to heredity. Thus "san-tai"—i.e., an account of one's parents up to three generations—must be given in every government examination and exchanged in betrothals. Before a betrothal is definitely arranged each party sends confidential agents to verify the ''san-tai" of the other unless it is already known.
Liang, Y. K., and Li Kung Tao. Village and Town Life in China. MacMillan Co., 1915.
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