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Chinese kinship

A Chinese family in Hawaii in the late 19th century.
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The Chinese kinship system (simplified Chinese: 亲属系统; traditional Chinese: 親屬系統; pinyin: qīnshǔ xìtǒng) is among the most complicated of all the world's kinship systems. It maintains a specific designation for almost every member's kin based on their generation, lineage, relative age, and gender. The traditional system was agnatic, based on patriarchal power, patrilocal residence, and descent through the male line. Although there has been much change in China over the last century, especially after 1949, there has also been substantial continuity.[1]

In the extended family, every child, from birth, participated in an organized system of kinship relations involving elder brothers, sisters, maternal elder brothers' wives, and various aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and in-laws. These relationships were precisely named and differentiated. The kinship system influences every aspect of Chinese custom and morality[2][3] and even law - the rights and duties they entailed were even enshrined in the legal codes of the Ming and Qing dynasties, so that gross violation could invite legal sanction.[4][5]

In traditional Chinese thought, these relationships carry extensive rights and duties whose fulfilment that constituted both righteousness (yi, 義) and propriety (li, 禮).[2][3] These rights and duties included love and care, certain kinds of respect on the basis of relation alone, mutual support - including financial, and mourning in the event of death. Fulfilment of these duties constituted the principal Chinese virtue - filial piety (xiao, 孝).[3] Family members expect to be addressed by the correct term that indicated their relationship to the person communicating with them.[6] Whenever wills clashed, it was expected, and even legally enforced,[4] that the will of the superior family member would prevail over the will of a junior family member.[3]

In the Chinese kinship system:

  • Maternal and paternal lineages are distinguished. For example, a mother's brother and a father's brother have different terms.
  • The relative age of a sibling is indicated by specific terms. For example, a father's younger brother has a different terminology than his older brother.
  • The gender of the relative is distinguished, as in English.
  • The generation from ego is indicated, like in English.

Rights and duties of kinship continue even after death - it was not considered sufficient to serve one's parents well in life, but one had to display the proper protocol even after they died.[2][3] Five degrees of mourning (五服) are observed.[3] In all places and times, Chinese mourning behavior is calibrated according to the genealogical distance between the mourner and the deceased.

The 19th century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, without field-work or detailed descriptions, classified Chinese kinship as a "Sudanese" or "descriptive" system.

  1. ^ JankowiakSun (2017).
  2. ^ a b c Xunzi versus Zhuangzi, Two Approaches to Death in Classical Chinese Thought, Charles Fraser, University of Hong Kong, p2
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Jordan: The Traditional Chinese Mourning Categories". pages.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 2024-08-06.
  4. ^ a b Jiang, Yonglin. The Mandate of Heaven and the Great Ming Code. pp. 60–61.
  5. ^ Jones, Charles E (1993). The Great Qing Code. Oxford University Press. p. 35.
  6. ^ Fairbank, John; Goldman, Merle (2006). China: A New History. Harvard University Press. p. 20. ISBN 0674116739.

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