State and Family in China

Examines the intersection of politics and intergenerational family relations in China from the Qing period to 1949.

Yue Du (Author)

9781108838351, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 November 2021

350 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.59 kg

'Offering a dynamic and sweeping portrait of China's filial tradition from the Qing Dynasty to the present day, Yue Du proves that the multifaceted ways in which successive Chinese regimes cultivated, deployed (or denounced) filial obligation remain essential not only to understand Chinese society in the past, but also the PRC's vision of its future. Calling upon vivid legal records, this book demonstrates how filiality may well be the most significant relationship for interpreting Chinese law, family, and governance. In this book we find a startling and sobering analysis of the exploitation and manipulation of family hierarchies by parents, evolving legal systems, and an invasive state.' Johanna Ransmeier, University of Chicago

In Imperial China, the idea of filial piety not only shaped family relations but was also the official ideology by which Qing China was governed. In State and Family in China, Yue Du examines the relationship between politics and intergenerational family relations in China from the Qing period to 1949, focusing on changes in family law, parent-child relationships, and the changing nature of the Chinese state during this period. This book highlights how the Qing dynasty treated the state-sponsored parent-child hierarchy as the axis around which Chinese family and political power relations were constructed and maintained. It shows how following the fall of the Qing in 1911, reform of filial piety law in the Republic of China became the basis of state-directed family reform, playing a central role in China's transition from empire to nation-state.

Introduction: filial piety beyond confucianism
Part I. Ruling the Empire through the Principle of Filialit: 1. 'Parents can never be wrong:' punishing rebellious children as a didactic show
2. Policies and counterstrategies: negotiating state-sponsored filiality in the everyday
3. 'Parenting all under heaven on behalf of heaven:' state-sponsored filiality and imperial rulership
Part II. Building the Nation through Restructuring the Family: 4. Reorienting parent-child relations: from parents' authority to children's rights
5. Reconceptualizing parent-child relations: from life-long parental privilege to transitory guardianship
6. A constitutional agenda: remaking the family to make a new state
Conclusion: filial piety toward the state.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Asian history [HBJF]