ABSTRACT
Taking a longer historical view over a century of profound political change and economic development, evidence from Wangcun reveals considerable continuity in the morality of kinship relations over the past three generations. All evidences suggest that the vast majority of villagers enthusiastically embraced their new government after Liberation, in the campaigns of the Cultural Revolution, all households burned their ancestral records and—with the notable exception of the Yang family. The author illustrates these trends with specific reference to three families in Wangcun who are broadly admired as 'virtuous' by villagers, despite adopting very different family structures and strategies. The chapter suggests that families in Wangcun continue to make judgements and structural choices based on enduring moral ideals in the pursuit of harmonious relations and that, while sleeping in different beds, they share the same dream by presenting the evidence.
