China Seminar Series continues with lecture on the Chinese family

Talk examines the similarities and differences between American and Chinese family structures.

The U.S-China Institute ended the fall semester China Seminar Series with a lecture on the Chinese family given by Harvard Sociology Professor Martin Whyte, a recognized author on China.

“This is a family system that has very ancient traditions,” said Whyte. “Many Chinese can trace their ancestry back 20 or more generations.”

Chinese family principles are based on opposite principles from Western family life, described Whyte. Traditionally, Chinese households are joint families with several different generations of the family living in the same home. Chinese men are expected to bring their wives into their family’s home and raise their children in the home they grew up in.

There is more of an emphasis in China, says Whyte, for children to be obedient and subservient to their elders.

One manifestation of this is an ancient tradition of parents arranging a large majority of the marriages for their children. In many cases, the bride and groom did not meet until the day of the wedding. Divorce was difficult and it was not uncommon for men to have multiple wives.

From the Chinese perspective, these policies made sense because the family members were expected to be committed to the family business, which emphasized the hierarchy of the family.

“It would wreak a lot of havoc if you had things like love and individual choice of mate,” said Whyte.

When the Communist party took over in 1949, they were determined to begin making some changes in Chinese family life. “Part of China’s weakness in standing up to the rest of the world was their traditional family customs and values,” says Whyte.

China’s 1950 marriage laws aimed to put men and women on equal footing. Divorce was legalized, bride sales were banned, and a minimum age requirement was placed on marriage. For the first time, marriage registration offices were opened to enforce these new rules.

One of the biggest impacts on the Chinese family structure was the concerted effort beginning in the 1970s to control the population by encouraging delayed marriages, longer intervals between births, and fewer children. In 1979, the one child policy was instituted and remains in effect today.

Chinese officials estimate that this plan has prevented 400 million births. Still, critics of the policy say China could face problems in the future because the current fertility rate is below the level needed to keep the population at a stable level.

Because China has the largest population in the world, the belief in the West is that Chinese women have more children than women in other countries. In fact, historical data shows that married women in China had fewer babies than married women in Europe. The complication comes because a higher percentage of Chinese women are married.

“China today does not have any higher percentage of the world population than it had in the past millennium or two,” said Whyte.