ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the fully partible, joint systems, describing the variation within that group. It begins with the Chinese system. The most important characteristics of this system were the patrilocal joint family and equal division of household and property. In sharp contrast to, say, the Japanese system, but not too different from the Korean, all brothers in a Chinese family, or jia, were expected to marry and to stay in the family when they did so, bringing their wives to live virilocally. When they lived together as members of a joint family there was one person, the family head, who controlled the budget and the labor of the family members and who represented the family in its dealings with other families and with the community at large. This head was normally the eldest male, more often the father than the elder brother of other married adult males who might have resided in the household.
