North China Rural Families. Changes during the Communist Era

Abstract

This paper describes and analyses the Chinese family in Yangmansa, a north China village, with respect to changes and continuities from before the onset of Communist rule through to the time of fieldwork in 1986-1987. After the Communist victory there was a rapid transition from arranged blind marriage to the requirement that the couple first approve of their match, but overwhelmingly marriages continued to be arranged throughout the collective era and since decollectivization in 1982. During the collective era there was a major transformation in marriage from dowry to brideprice, and then a return to dowry with decollectivization. The traditional corporate family or jia survived in weakened form during the collective era, when workpoints replaced land as the major family asset, and when there took hold a new pattern of danguo or economic and residential independence prior to formal family division or fenjia. With decollectivization, family arrangements remained as before, except in a few cases where integrated joint families have once again appeared, based upon the diversification now possible in the era of economic reform.