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marriage are now cast over wide areas. However, some of the traditional wedding ceremonialism is still kept up. A kind of procession, but without a sedan chair, is arranged. The main rite is still ancestor worship. What might earlier have been secondary marriages in foreign countries have now become the main and only marriage. In Big Stream Village, for instance, there is a man who married a British woman. They are now both residing in Britain, but their small child has been left with the grandparents in the village. On the whole, the marriages seem to be outside the scope of parental control: and the new wife is not always willing to submit herself to the traditional household control exercised by the husband's parents. As a matter of fact, many wives prefer to stay away from the near relatives of her husband, during the periods he is working abroad. Mostly she stays on with her own parents, but her husband may also provide for her so that she and their children reside in a market town, or at least away from the village. In Big Stream Village alone there are six examples of this innovation. During the periods the latter spends at home, the woman joins him whether he chooses to live inside or outside his village. There is no well-established pattern of residence, and apparently there is much improvisation.
These innovations are very much in contradiction with the rules of traditional Chinese society. The older generation often express bitterness with the present-day situation. They still think in terms of local economy, even if they have been emigrants themselves, and they regret the diminishing supply of female labour that used to be a substitute for absent men.
NOTES
I The material for this essay was collected during a stay in Hong Kong from December 1964 to October 1965. The field work was financed by the following Swedish funds: Magnus Bergvalls stiftelse, Konung Gustaf VI Adolf:s 80-arsfond, Hierta-Retzius' fond, Humanistiska fonden, Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse, and Vegafonden. I wish to express my deep gratitude for their generous support. I am also indebted to Mr. Leung Chee-tung, whose profound knowledge of the New Territories, so well-known among anthropologists working in Hong Kong, was of indispensable help to me. I thank Mr. Robert G. Groves most warmly for his kind assistance in Hong Kong. All romanisation is given in a Cantonese Form, except where an M in brackets indicates Mandarin in the Wade-Giles form. The place-names are as listed in A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. Hong Kong Government Printer, 1960. See especially pp. 180-181.