Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:40:50.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kin Networks, Marriage, and Social Mobility in Late Imperial China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Cameron Campbell  and
James Lee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To assess claims about the role of the extended family in late imperial Chinese society, we examine the influence of kin network characteristics on marriage, reproduction, and attainment in Liaoning Province in Northeast China in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We compare the influences on outcomes of the number and status of different types of kin as well as the seniority of the individual within each type of kin group. We find that the characteristics of kin outside the household did matter for individual outcomes but that patterns of effects were nuanced. While based on our results we concur that kin networks were important units of social and economic organization in late imperial China, we conclude that their role was complex.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Summer 2008 , pp. 175 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2008 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aminzade, Ronald, and Randy Hodson (1982) “Social mobility in a mid-nineteenth century French city.” American Sociological Review 47: 441–57.Google Scholar
Bearman, Peter S., and Glenn, Deane (1992) “The structure of opportunity: Middle-class opportunity in England, 1548-1689.” American Journal of Sociology 98: 30–66.Google Scholar
Bengtsson, Tommy, Cameron, Campbell, James, Lee, et al. (2004) Life under Pressure: Mortality and Living Standards in Europe and Asia, 1700-1900. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Cameron, and James, Lee (1996) “A death in the family: Household structure and mortality in rural Liaoning, life-event and time-series analysis, 1792-1867.” History of the Family 1: 297–328.Google Scholar
Campbell, Cameron, and James, Lee (2000) “Price fluctuations, family structure, and mortality in two rural Chinese populations: Household responses to economic stress in eighteenth and nineteenth century Liaoning,” in Tommy, Bengtsson and Osamu, Saito (eds.) Population and the Economy: From Hunger to Modern Economic Growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 371–420.Google Scholar
Campbell, Cameron, and James, Lee (2003) “Social mobility from a kinship perspective: Rural Liaoning, 1789-1909.” International Review of Social History 47: 1–26.Google Scholar
Campbell, Cameron, and James, Lee (2004) “State views and local views of population: Linking and comparing genealogical and household register data in Liaoning, 1749-1909.” California Center for Population Research Working Paper CCPR-026-04, www.ccpr.ucla.edu.Google Scholar
Cohen, Myron (1990) “Lineage organization in North China.” Journal of Asian Studies 49: 509–34.Google Scholar
Das Gupta, Monica (1997) “Kinship systems and demographic regimes,” in Kertzer, David I. and Tom, Fricke (eds.) Anthropological Demography: Toward a New Synthesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 36–52.Google Scholar
Das Gupta, Monica (1998) “Lifeboat versus corporate ethic: Social and demographical implications of stem and joint families,” in Antoinette, Fauve-Chamoux and Emiko, Ochiai (eds.) House and the Stem Family in Eurasian Perspective. Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies: 444–66.Google Scholar
Davis, Kingsley (1948) Human Society. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Davis, Kingsley (1955) “Institutional factors favoring high fertility in underdeveloped areas.” Eugenics Quarterly 2: 33–39.Google Scholar
Ding, Yizhuang (1992) Qingdai baqi zhufang zhidu yanjiu (Research on the Eight Banner Garrison System during the Qing). Tianjin: Guji Chuban She.Google Scholar
Ding, Yizhuang, Guo, Songyi, James, Lee, and Cameron, Campbell (2003) Liaodong baqi yimin shehui (Liaodong Banner Immigration and Rural Society). Shanghai: Shanghai Shihui Kexue Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Ebrey, Patricia (1984) Family and Property in Sung China: Yuan Ts'ai's Precepts for Social Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ebrey, Patricia (1991) Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China: A Social History of Writing about Rites. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Elliott, Mark (2001) The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Feng, Han-chi (1937) “The Chinese kinship system.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 2: 142–289.Google Scholar
Freedman, Maurice (1958) Lineage Organization in Southeastern China. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
Freedman, Maurice (1966) Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Jack (1986) “The demographic revolution in England: A re-examination.” Population Studies 40: 5–33.Google Scholar
Goode, William J. (1970) World Revolution and Family Patterns. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Greenhalgh, Susan (1988) “Families and networks in Taiwan's economic development,” in Edwin, Winckler and Susan, Greenhalgh (eds.) Contending Approaches to the Political Economy of Taiwan. Armonk, NY: Sharpe: 224–45.Google Scholar
Greenhalgh, Susan (1990) “Land reform and family entrepreneurialism in East Asia,” in McNicoll, G. and Cain, M. (eds.) Rural Development and Population: Institutions and Policies. New York: Oxford University Press: 77–118.Google Scholar
Griffen, Clyde, and Sally, Griffen (1978) Natives and Newcomers: The Ordering of Opportunity in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Poughkeepsie. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hajnal, John (1982) “Two kinds of pre-industrial household formation system.” Population and Development Review 8: 449–94.Google Scholar
Harrell, Stevan J. (1985) “The rich get children: Segmentation, stratification, and population in three Zhejiang lineages, 1550-1850,” in Susan, Hanley and Arthur, Wolf (eds.) Family and Population in East Asian History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press: 81–109.Google Scholar
Harrell, Stevan J. (1987) “On the holes in Chinese genealogies.” Late Imperial China 8 (2): 53–79.Google Scholar
Harrell, Stevan, and Tom Pullum (1995) “Marriage, mortality, and the developmental cycle in three Xiaoshan lineages,” in Stevan, Harrell (ed.) Chinese Historical Microdemography. Berkeley: University of California Press: 141–62.Google Scholar
Ho, Ping-ti (1962) The Ladder of Success in Imperial China. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hsiung, Ping-chen (1994) “Constructed emotions: The bond between mothers and sons in late imperial China.” Late Imperial China 15 (1): 87–117.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip (1990) The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1988. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hymes, Robert (1987) Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jiang, Tao (1993) Zhongguo jindai renkou shi (Modern Chinese Population History). Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Chuban She.Google Scholar
Kaelble, Hartmut (1981) Historical Research on Social Mobility: Western Europe and the USA in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Katz, Michael B. (1975) The People of Hamilton, Canada West: Family and Class in a Mid-Nineteenth-Century City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Landale, Nancy S., and Guest, Avery M. (1990) “Generation, ethnicity, and occupational opportunity in late nineteenth-century America.” American Sociological Review 55: 280–96.Google Scholar
Lang, Olga (1946) Chinese Family and Society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Laslett, Peter (1977) “Characteristics of the Western family considered over time.” Journal of Family History 2 (2): 89–116.Google Scholar
Laslett, Peter (1983) “Family and household as workgroup and kin group: Areas of traditional Europe compared,” in Richard, Wall, Jean, Robin, and Peter, Laslett (eds.) Family Forms in Historic Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 513–63.Google Scholar
Laslett, Peter (1988) “Family, kinship, and collectivity as systems of support in pre-industrial Europe: A consideration of the ‘nuclear hardship’ hypotheses.” Continuity and Change 3: 153–75.Google Scholar
Lee, James, and Cameron, Campbell (1997) Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning, 1774-1873. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, James, and Cameron, Campbell (2005) “Living standards in Liaoning, 1749-1909: Evidence from demographic outcomes,” in Robert, Allen, Tommy, Bengtsson, and Martin, Dribe (eds.) Living Standards in the Past: New Perspectives on Well-Being in Europe and Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 403–26.Google Scholar
Lee, James, and Wang Feng (1999) One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Levine, David (1987) Reproducing Families: The Political Economy of English Population History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Ts'ui-jung (1985) “The demography of two Chinese clans in Hsiao-shan, Chekiang, 1650-1850,” in Susan, Hanley and Arthur, Wolf (eds.) Family and Population in East Asian History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press: 13–61.Google Scholar
Liu, Ts'ui-jung (1995a) “Demographic constraint and family structure in traditional Chinese lineages, ca. 1200-1900,” in Stevan, Harrell (ed.) Chinese Historical Microdemography. Berkeley: University of California Press: 121–40.Google Scholar
Liu, Ts'ui-jung (1995b) “Historical demography of South China lineages,” in Stevan, Harrell (ed.) Chinese Historical Microdemography. Berkeley: University of California Press: 94–120.Google Scholar
Liu, Wang Hui-chen (1959) The Traditional Chinese Clan Rules. New York: Augustin, J. J. for the Association for Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Macfarlane, Alan (1978) The Origins of English Individualism: Family, Property, and Social Transition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Macfarlane, Alan (1986) Marriage and Love in England, Modes of Reproduction, 1300-1840. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Macfarlane, Alan (1987) The Culture of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Macfarlane, Alan (1997) The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan, and the Malthusian Trap. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Malthus, Thomas Robert (1986 [1826]) An Essay on the Principle of Population. In Wrigley, E. A. and David, Souden (eds.) The Works of Thomas Malthus. Vol. 2. London: Pickering.Google Scholar
Miles, Andrew (1999) Social Mobility in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century England. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Miles, Andrew, and David, Vincent, eds. (1993) Building European Society: Occupational Change and Social Mobility in Europe, 1840-1940. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Plakans, Andrejs (1984) Kinship in the Past: An Anthropology of European Family Life, 1500-1900. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl (1944) The Great Transformation. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.Google Scholar
Schofield, Roger (1985) “English marriage patterns revisited.” Journal of Family History 10: 2–20.Google Scholar
Schofield, Roger (1989) “Family structure, demographic behavior, and economic growth,” in John, Walter and Roger, Schofield (eds.) Famine, Disease, and the Social Order in Early Modern Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 279–304.Google Scholar
Sharlin, Allan (1979) “From the study of social mobility to the study of society.” American Journal of Sociology 85: 338–60.Google Scholar
Skinner, William G. (1987) “The population of Sichuan in the nineteenth century: Lessons from disaggregated data.” Late Imperial China 8: 1–79.Google Scholar
Skinner, William G. (1997) “Family systems and demographic processes,” in Kertzer, David I. and Tom, Fricke (eds.) Anthropological Demography: Toward a New Synthesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 53–95.Google Scholar
Szonyi, Michael (2002) Practicing Kinship: Lineage and Descent in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Telford, Ted A. (1990) “Patching the holes in Chinese genealogies: Mortality in the lineage populations of Tongcheng County, 1300-1880.” Late Imperial China 11 (2): 116–36.Google Scholar
Telford, Ted A. (1992) “Covariates of men's age at first marriage: The historical demography of Chinese lineages.” Population Studies 46: 19–35.Google Scholar
Thernstrom, Stephan (1973) The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tong, Yonggong and Guan, Jialu (1994) “Qianlongchao Shengjing zongguan neiwufu de sheli” (“The establishment of the central office of the imperial household agency during the Qianlong period”). Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 2: 19–23.Google Scholar
Tong, Yonggong and Guan, Jialu (1999) “Shengjing neiwufu de shezhi yange jiqi lishi zuoyong” (“The establishment of the Shengjing Imperial Household Agency and its historical functions”), in Bo, Di (ed.) Qingzhu Wang Zhonghan jiaoshou bashiwu ji Wei Qingyuan jiaoshou qishi huayan xueshu lunwen heji (Joint Festschrift for Wang Zhonghan and Wei Qingyuan). Hefei: Huangshan Shushe: 326–31.Google Scholar
Wang, Feng, James, Lee, and Cameron, Campbell (1995) “Marital fertility control among the Qing nobility: Implications for two types of preventive check.” Population Studies 49: 383–400.Google Scholar
Weir, David (1984) “Rather late than never: Celibacy and age at marriage in English cohort fertility, 1541-1871.” Journal of Family History 9: 340–54.Google Scholar
Whyte, Martin K. (1995) “The social roots of China's economic development.” China Quarterly 144: 999–1019.Google Scholar
Wolf, Arthur (2005) “Europe and China: Two kinds of patriarchy,” in Theo, Engelen and Arthur, Wolf (eds.) Marriage and the Family in Eurasia: Perspectives on the Hajnal Hypothesis. Amsterdam: Aksant: 215–38.Google Scholar
Wolf, Arthur, and Chieh-shan Huang (1980) Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wong, Siu-lun (1985) “The Chinese family firm: A model.” British Journal of Sociology 36: 58–72.Google Scholar
Wong, Siu-lun (1988) “The applicability of Asian family values to other sociocultural settings,” in Peter Berger and Hsin-Huang M. Hsiao (eds.) In Search of an East Asian Development Model. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction: 134–54.Google Scholar
Wrigley, Edward A. (1978) “Fertility strategy for the individual and the group,” in Charles, Tilly (ed.) Historical Studies of Changing Fertility. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 135–54.Google Scholar
Wrigley, Edward A., and Roger, Schofield (1981) The Population History of England, 1541-1871: A Reconstruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang (1996) The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Yuan, I-Chin (1931) “Life tables for a southern Chinese family from 1365 to 1849.” Human Biology 3 (2): 57–79.Google Scholar
Zhao, Zhongwei (1997) “Long-term mortality patterns in Chinese history: Evidence from a recorded clan population.” Population Studies 51: 117–28.Google Scholar
Zhao, Zhongwei (2001) “Chinese genealogies as a source for demographic research: A further assessment of their reliabilities and biases.” Population Studies 55: 181–93.Google Scholar
Zheng, Zhenman (2001) Family Lineage Organization and Social Change in Ming and Qing Fujian, trans. Michael Szonyi. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar