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Do you have any sources for that? I have seen zero evidence of that in my travels through China nor online other then some references about Neolithic times (not

by jascii 7y ago

Do you have any sources for that? I have seen zero evidence of that in my travels through China nor online other then some references about Neolithic times (not exactly recent) and the Oroqen people (who believe that marrying within their own tribe is akin to incest). I was mostly led to believe that up to the cultural revolution people mostly stayed and married in their own village.

wahern 7y ago
Not from any book in particular, mostly from hearing stories from older Chinese (60-80+ year-olds, mostly diaspora in Malaysia, Singapore, and U.S., though also one or two younger mainlanders[1]), and reading various articles on the internet, plus Wikipedia to help piece things together. I did take one or two Chinese culture classes in college, but that was long ago and it would be hard to untangle what I learned then from what I've learned since then. Here's an example I just Googled which I don't remember ever reading before but echos what I said almost exactly: > Like other Chinese, Hakka practice surname exogamy. Marriage traditionally was arranged, often village exogamous, and also patrilocal. Hakka marriage ceremonies suggest the transfer of women from one family to another and the incorporation of women into their husband's household and lineage rather than the establishment of bonds between two families. Wives are included in ancestral worship of their husband's lineage. Many Hakka claim that polygynous marriages were rare among the Hakka, yet until recently polygynous marriages were found among poor Hakka villagers in the New Territories of Hong Kong. -- https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka-Marriage-and-Family.html https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka-Marr... Hardly a reputable source (seems like it was pulled from an older Wikipedia article), but such agreement would seem like an unlikely coincidence. A bibliography is provided at https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka.html https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka.html [1] Some aspects of traditional Chinese culture are better preserved outside China, as the Cultural Revolution literally and figuratively killed off parts of the cultural memory. Nonetheless, the reverse is also true; some aspects of the culture are preserved in the mainland but not in the diaspora. Perhaps only the historians really have the full story, even for relatively modern (e.g. early 20th century) practices.
zdragnar 7y ago
An ex whose family was from Taiwan (ethnically Chinese) were more or less this way. It wasn't a hard cutoff with punishments or anything like that, but when a woman from her parents' generation or before married, they more or less became part of the husband's family. The somewhat modern / western / American notion of two families joining was definitely foreign for them.
morningseagulls 7y ago
>I have seen zero evidence of that in my travels through China The parent comment said: "The Chinese, for example, practiced until recently strict exogamous marriage [...]". This explains your experience. >Do you have any sources for that? Try searching "Chinese exogamy" in Google Scholar. Surname (i.e. "clan") exogamy is fairly well-known and still practiced. Here's a passage from Rubie S Watson's afterword to the 1991 book on Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society that she co-edited: >In China, most unions have involved the transfer of the bride to her husband's household, which, at least initially, has often been headed by her husband's father or a senior agnate. Although not all newly married couples have lived patrilocally, residence with the husband's family has remained both numerically and symbolically significant. This has been especially the case in rural areas where more than 80 percent of the population live and where village exogamy has remained the usual practice. If you're reacting to the statement that "[w]omen were forbidden to have contact with their biological family after marriage", this was not necessarily a strict prohibition. Because exogamy typically involves moving to a faraway village, it was usually a hassle for the bride to travel back to their biological family, and so if she actually did it, it could be interpreted as a breakdown in the marriage. Until recently, the practice of adopting a pre-adolescent girl to be the future bride of a pre-adolescent son (tongyangxi) was also a common form of arranged marriage in China.[1] The practice can also go in the other direction, and is known as zhaozhui, or "son-in-law adoption". [0] https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6p3007p1&chunk.id=d0e21944&toc.id=&brand=ucpress https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6p30... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyangxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyangxi

by jascii 7y ago

wahern 7y ago

Not from any book in particular, mostly from hearing stories from older Chinese (60-80+ year-olds, mostly diaspora in Malaysia, Singapore, and U.S., though also one or two younger mainlanders[1]), and reading various articles on the internet, plus Wikipedia to help piece things together. I did take one or two Chinese culture classes in college, but that was long ago and it would be hard to untangle what I learned then from what I've learned since then. Here's an example I just Googled which I don't remember ever reading before but echos what I said almost exactly: > Like other Chinese, Hakka practice surname exogamy. Marriage traditionally was arranged, often village exogamous, and also patrilocal. Hakka marriage ceremonies suggest the transfer of women from one family to another and the incorporation of women into their husband's household and lineage rather than the establishment of bonds between two families. Wives are included in ancestral worship of their husband's lineage. Many Hakka claim that polygynous marriages were rare among the Hakka, yet until recently polygynous marriages were found among poor Hakka villagers in the New Territories of Hong Kong. -- https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka-Marriage-and-Family.html https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka-Marr... Hardly a reputable source (seems like it was pulled from an older Wikipedia article), but such agreement would seem like an unlikely coincidence. A bibliography is provided at https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka.html https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Hakka.html [1] Some aspects of traditional Chinese culture are better preserved outside China, as the Cultural Revolution literally and figuratively killed off parts of the cultural memory. Nonetheless, the reverse is also true; some aspects of the culture are preserved in the mainland but not in the diaspora. Perhaps only the historians really have the full story, even for relatively modern (e.g. early 20th century) practices.

zdragnar 7y ago

An ex whose family was from Taiwan (ethnically Chinese) were more or less this way. It wasn't a hard cutoff with punishments or anything like that, but when a woman from her parents' generation or before married, they more or less became part of the husband's family. The somewhat modern / western / American notion of two families joining was definitely foreign for them.

morningseagulls 7y ago

>I have seen zero evidence of that in my travels through China The parent comment said: "The Chinese, for example, practiced until recently strict exogamous marriage [...]". This explains your experience. >Do you have any sources for that? Try searching "Chinese exogamy" in Google Scholar. Surname (i.e. "clan") exogamy is fairly well-known and still practiced. Here's a passage from Rubie S Watson's afterword to the 1991 book on Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society that she co-edited: >In China, most unions have involved the transfer of the bride to her husband's household, which, at least initially, has often been headed by her husband's father or a senior agnate. Although not all newly married couples have lived patrilocally, residence with the husband's family has remained both numerically and symbolically significant. This has been especially the case in rural areas where more than 80 percent of the population live and where village exogamy has remained the usual practice. If you're reacting to the statement that "[w]omen were forbidden to have contact with their biological family after marriage", this was not necessarily a strict prohibition. Because exogamy typically involves moving to a faraway village, it was usually a hassle for the bride to travel back to their biological family, and so if she actually did it, it could be interpreted as a breakdown in the marriage. Until recently, the practice of adopting a pre-adolescent girl to be the future bride of a pre-adolescent son (tongyangxi) was also a common form of arranged marriage in China.[1] The practice can also go in the other direction, and is known as zhaozhui, or "son-in-law adoption". [0] https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6p3007p1&chunk.id=d0e21944&toc.id=&brand=ucpress https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6p30... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyangxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyangxi