ABSTRACT
Patriarchy” literally means “the rule of father.” In Chinese, it is usually translated as fuquan. However, the term fuquan remains technical academic jargon by and large. The villagers whom I encountered in the field never use this term. When they talk about “patriarchy” in their discourse, they do not use any specific word. They directly discuss the power and privileges that the male head of household enjoys in the family and the community at large. These kinds of power and privileges include patrilocality, paternal authority over the domestic sphere, patrilineal succession of family property, male-only membership of the communal corporation that controls the ancestral estate, and the male-only rights to participate in communal affairs on an agnatic basis. This feature reminds us of the necessity to maintain the conceptual rigor that “patriarchy” should not be interpreted simply as male domination, and that it should be understood as a specific form of male domination which only provides fatherhood with authority and superiority over other men and women. The overuse of “patriarchy” prevents us from seeing some remarkable specificities of patriarchy in practice and leads us to overestimate the actual magnitude of patriarchy in society.1 By concentrating on the example of the households in Da Shu village, this chapter tries to highlight some of the complexity of Chinese patriarchy at the practical level. The term “household” refers to the living unit where people establish their home and conduct their domestic life.2 This chapter begins with a closer look at the cooperation between men and women in the organization of household work and responsibilities. Then it highlights the common features of village men and women with respect to their gender-specific conduct inside the household and their different daily activities. In so doing, it argues that Chinese patriarchy is not a set of male privileges and power which are conferred upon every man, and that many Chinese men actually fail to
be patriarchs. Even when it is legitimized by the British colonial government in the New Territories, it remains fundamentally indeterminate and vulnerable in practice. Many of the households have developed their own informal and alternative practices, despite the local claims to the centrality of patriarchy.
