TRANSFORMING PATRIARCHY: Chinese Families in the Twenty-First Century

Given the rapid changes brought about by market reforms, this volume is an important and timely contribution to the literature on Chinese gender relations and family life during this key era of economic development and globalization.Because patriarchy is a broad term that must be considered within a historical and cultural context, this book categorizes China as a "classic" type involving "a hierarchical system of domestic relations that includes multiple intersecting structures of inequality including gender and generational inequalities, among others" (10).For centuries this system of male dominance derived its strength from a combination of economic, institutional, and ideological factors such as virilocality (women joining their husband's family upon marriage), patrilineal inheritance, and the centralizing of power in the hands of senior male patriarchs.Lihong Shi's fascinating case study in a rural northeast village shows how parents increasingly prefer to have girls due to rising childrearing costs, declining beliefs about needing sons to continue the family line, and new views of sons as financial burdens rather than care providers.