ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a key source of local authority, the family, and considers the forms of everyday politics kin deployed to work with the state to extract resources and maintain power or, less commonly, to challenge state authority. The local community too was largely committed to defending the family, as it represented the means to controlling land and ensuring survival. A messy range of everyday politics animates a case from 1891 and reveals the importance of the family in local order. The family’s essential role in the making of local justice is perhaps most clear in legal cases following suicides, particularly those of women. Despite the court’s unwillingness to accept Zhang Shi’s narrative, this case suggests the ways in which family members used litigation to press for the proper treatment of dead relatives. Family members often became separated from another, frequently due to economic necessity, and thus were unable to exercise regular oversight and protection of relatives.
