Marriage form and family division in three villages in rural China

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the influence of children's marriage form and other characteristics on whether married couples in three villages in rural China establish a family separate from the joint family of their natal kin. The results reveal that, for children with a brother, sons in virilocal marriages are more likely than daughters in uxorilocal marriages to establish a family separate from that of their parents and do so earlier than these daughters. However, among children without a brother, sons and daughters do not differ significantly in whether or when they divide off from their extended family and set up a new family. The majority of family division occurs in the first 5 years after marriage for sons and daughters. Number of siblings and other characteristics also affect the likelihood of family division. We discuss demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural causes underlying this phenomenon as well as its social implications.

Marriage form and age at first marriage: A comparative study in three counties in contemporary rural China

“…Marriage form, as an essential element of patrilineal family system, is expected to have a significant impact on age at first marriage and spousal age difference. In contemporary rural China, newly married couples still conventionally live with their parents for a while after marriage, although the duration of postmarital coresidence with parents for junior conjugal units has decreased to the extent that in a number of places it has even become a symbolic procedure (Cohen, 1992;Huang, 1992;Lavely and Ren, 1992;Harrell, 1993;Seiden, 1993;Yan, 1998;Li et al, 2003b). Compared with virilocal and uxorilocal marriages, neolocal marriage, in which the newly married couple lives with neither set of parents after marriage, is still rare in rural China, although with recent modernization it is becoming more acceptable among rural Chinese.…”

“…However, Shi (2001) found from a survey of three villages in Zhejiang province that, while the spousal age difference did not differ significantly between virilocal and uxorilocal marriages, age at first marriage was lower for both genders in uxorilocal marriages. With the changing family structure and increasing proportion of uxorilocal marriage in contemporary rural China, the number of studies on family relationship involving uxorilocal marriage is increasing (Li et al, 2003b;2004). However, there are still few systematic and quantitative studies on determinants of age at first marriage in uxorilocal marriages.…”

“…In contemporary rural China, although the proportion of nuclear families has steadily increased and the traditional mode of family division has gradually been replaced by a new serial division of family budgets and economy between father and sons, with each son leaving his natal home shortly after his marriage (Cohen, 1992;Li et al, 2003b;Wang, 2003), family property is still equally divided among all sons, and the patrilineal family system has not changed significantly in terms of marriage form, succession, residential arrangements, and so forth. Marriage form, as an essential element of patrilineal family system, is expected to have a significant impact on age at first marriage and spousal age difference.…”

Marriage form and fertility in rural China: an investigation in three counties

“…Additionally, the studies of Songzi show that ***P < .001, **P < .01, *P < .05 a Since this paper mainly concerns the effects of marriage form, marriage cohort, and regional differences on CEB, the estimates of other factors entered into the five models are not shown in the table duration of postmarital co-residence with parents for couples in uxorilocal marriage is significantly longer than for couples in virilocal marriage, and the hazard of family division, namely the likelihood of couples leaving their parents' house and living independently, is significantly lower for those in uxorilocal marriage than for those in virilocal marriage. Thus uxorilocal marriage is likely to contribute to preservation of the extended family Li et al, 2003Li et al, , 2004Li et al, , 2005. According to theory on the relationship between family system and fertility (Skinner, 1997), women in uxorilocal marriages should have a stronger tendency to produce more children than women in virilocal marriages.…”

Brotherhood Considered – Responsibility and Tensions Concerning Elderly Support in North China

“…Mac Marshall identifies sharing as a common characteristic of kinship in all societies (Marshall 1977: 656). Brothers in north China share biogenetic substance -one of the most important symbolic resources of patrilineal social orders; they share family property and the duty of supporting parents in their old age from the moment of family division (Cohen 1992;Li, Feldman and Jin 2003); they share notions about commitment and solidarity for sustaining and renewing through recurrent acts of sharing and nurturance, namely to "create" intensive interpersonal relationships through interactions (laiwang) (Stafford 2000). But as the highly-proclaimed market economy in the last three decades has increasingly atomised individuals -as coping with actually serious social insecurity has become more and more challenging, as the shared family property among brothers is losing its practical value for subsistence and market value for commercial benefits, as the shared responsibility of supporting elderly parents is becoming a financial burden impairing the available resources for the offspringdoes it still make sense to apply the conventional notions of being brothers to regulate actual contested duties?…”