"Little quilted vests to warm parents' hearts": Redefining the gendered practice of filial piety in rural North-eastern China

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 198, 2009, Pages 348-363

  Shi, Lihong ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELDERLY CARE; GENDER RELATIONS; GENDER ROLE; PARENT-OFFSPRING INTERACTION; RURAL SOCIETY; SEX-RELATED DIFFERENCE;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 67949115847     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741009000344     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Chai Chu and Winberg Chai, The Sacred Books of Confucius and other Confucian Classics (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1965), p. 331.
2. Keith Knapp, Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005);
3. Yuet Keung Lo, "Filial devotion for women: A Buddhist testimony from third-century China," in Alan K. L. Chan and Sor-hoon Tan (eds.), Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), pp. 71-90;
4. Sor-Hoon Tan, "Filial daughters-in-law: Questioning Confucian filiality," in ibid. pp. 226-40.
5. Hugh D.R. Baker, Chinese Family and Kinship (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979);
6. Maurice Freedman (ed.), Family and Kinship in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970);
7. Francis Hsu, Under the Ancestors' Shadow: Kinship, Personality, and Social Mobility in China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971).
8. There are exceptions of women maintaining close ties with their natal families and contributing to their parents' old-age support in areas where women's labour had been highly valued in pre-revolutionary China. See Marjorie Topley, "Marriage resistance in rural Kwangtung," in Margery Wolf and Roxanne Witke (eds.), Women in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), pp. 67-88;
9. Helen Siu, "Reconstituting dowry and brideprice in south China," in Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell (eds.), Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 165-88;
10. Janice Stockard, Daughters of the Canton Delta: Marriage Patterns and Economic Strategies in South China, 1860-1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989).
11. Rubie S. Watson, "Chinese bridal laments: The claims of a dutiful daughter," in James Watson and Rubie S. Watson (eds.), Village Life in Hong Kong: Politics, Gender, and Ritual in the New Territories (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2004), pp. 221-50;
12. Arthur P. Wolf and Chieh-shan Huang, Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980).
13. The obligation of adult children to provide financial support for their parents in need has been inscribed in Article 49 of the 1982 Constitution, Article 15 of the 1980 Marriage Law and Article 183 of the 1979 Criminal Law. See Michael Palmer, "The re-emergence of family law in post-Mao China," The China Quarterly, No. 141 (1995), pp. 110-35.
14. Guo Yuhua, "Daiji guanxi zhong de gongping luoji jiqi bianqian: Dui Hebei nongcun yanglao shijian de fenxi" ("The logic of fairness and its change in intergenerational relations: An analysis of cases of elderly support in rural Hebei"), Zhongguo xueshu (Chinese Scholarship), No. 4 (2001), pp. 221-54;
15. Yunxiang Yan, Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949-1999 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).
16. Harriet Evans, The Subject of Gender: Daughters and Mothers in Urban China (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008);
17. Vanessa L. Fong, Only Hope: Coming of Age under China's One-Child Policy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004);
18. Ellen Judd, "Niangjia: Chinese women and their natal families," The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 43, No. 3 (1989), pp. 525-44;
19. Margery Wolf, Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972).
20. Martin King Whyte, "Filial obligations in Chinese families: Paradoxes of modernization" in Charlotte Ikels (ed.), Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 106-27;
21. Yunxiang Yan, Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village, 1949-1999 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003);
22. Heying Jenny Zhan and Rhonda J.V. Montgomery, "Gender and elder care in China: The influence of filial piety and structure constraints," Gender & Society, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2003), pp. 209-29;
23. Hong Zhang, "China's new rural daughters coming of age: Downsizing the family and firing up cash-earning power in the new economy," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 32, No. 3 (2007), pp. 671-98.
24. To protect the privacy of my informants, I use pseudonyms for their names and for the name of the village.
25. I adopted the Chinese government's criterion of 15-49 for women's reproductive ages. I interviewed only married women within this age range. The survey of 248 couples of reproductive age included couples from Lijia village and a neighbouring village.
26. In rural China, the administrative units are the village, township, county, city and province. The village is the smallest unit and the province is the largest.
27. All interviews were conducted privately with the elderly parents, without the presence of their married children. Of the 34 informants 14 were couples and were interviewed separately.
28. Lijia village is located about 4 km away from the local county seat where many peasants seek non-agricultural employment, such as working in construction sites and restaurants. In addition, there is a brick kiln outside Lijia village where a large number of Lijia residents seek employment. According to my interviews with Lijia daughters who have chosen to move back to Lijia village after marriage, the accessibility to these job opportunities was the major reason for their decision.
29. Elizabeth Croll, Delia Davin and Penny Kane (eds.), China's One-Child Family Policy (New York: St Martin's Press, 1985);
30. Susan Greenhalgh and Edwin Winckler, Governing China's Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005);
31. Tyrene White, China's Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People's Republic, 1949-2005 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).
32. Another major expense is a deceased parent's funeral. In Lijia village, according to tradition, sons are responsible for the expense of the funeral home services and a feast for guests. Daughters pay for the expense of hiring a mourning band. The child who holds the funeral feast also keeps the gift money received from guests. Therefore, in some cases in Lijia village, several children have competed to hold a parent's funeral.
33. In 2006, the currency conversion rate between the US dollar and the Chinese yuan was 1:7.8.
34. See also Myron Cohen, House United, House Divided: The Chinese Family in Taiwan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976);
35. Charlotte Ikels, "Settling accounts: The intergenerational contract in an age of reform," in Davis and Harrell, Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era, pp. 277-333.
36. After Yulan was adopted, she and her biological parents remained in contact. Her biological parents, who remained married and had several more children, visited her several times, but she visited them only once.
37. Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell, "Introduction," in Davis and Harrell, Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era, pp. 1-22;
38. Yunxiang Yan, Private Life under Socialism.
39. Elisabeth Croll, "The intergenerational contract in the changing Asian family," Oxford Development Studies, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2006), pp. 473-91;
40. Guo Yuhua, "The logic of fairness and its change in inter-generational relations"; Yunxiang Yan, Private Life under Socialism.
41. In Lijia village in 2006, the most suitable ages for marriage were 20 to 22 for a man and 19 to 21 for a woman.
42. A dowry includes money and household items, such as small electric devices and bedding items. Some brides spent part of their bride wealth on household items and counted them towards their dowry. The average amount of a dowry in 2006 was between 5,000 and 10,000 yuan, only a fraction of the amount for bride wealth.
43. Yunxiang Yan, Private Life under Socialism; Weiguo Zhang, "Dynamics of marriage change in Chinese rural society in transition: A study of a northern Chinese village," Population Studies, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2000), pp. 57-69.
44. Elisabeth Croll, The Politics of Marriage in Contemporary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981);
45. Emily Honig and Gail Hershatter, Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988);
46. Yunxiang Yan, Private Life under Socialism.
47. Women's rights to initiate a divorce are contained in Article 17 of the 1950 Marriage Law.
48. Neil J. Diamant, Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949-1968 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
49. Keming Yang and Christina R. Victor, "The prevalence of and risk factors for loneliness among older people in China," Aging & Society Vol. 28 (2008), pp. 305-27.
50. Evans, The Subject of Gender; Fong, Only Hope.