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BOOK REVIEWS
CHINESE LINEAGE AND SOCIETY; FUKIEN AND KWANGTUNG. Maurice Freedman. London, The Athlone Press, New York, Humanities Press Inc., 1966, pp. x, 207, 37s 6d.
This monograph, in my opinion, will repay study by anybody interested in enlarging his serious knowledge of how Chinese local society has worked traditionally in this part of the world. The picture given is built on both factual material and logical argument.
In an earlier book (Lineage Organization in Southeastern China, Athlone Press, 1958 and paperback re-issue 1965) the author set out some reflections on the subject based on ideas from material collected by him during a field study in Singapore, and a wide and thorough reading of written sources. The present work is a sequel. His argument here is reinforced and extended by many new facts from studies now completed in the New Territories (members will recall a talk given to the Society by Professor Freedman while he was here conducting one of these studies himself) and in Taiwan. It is also strengthened by additional material taken from other new and traditional sources.
It should be pointed out at once that the book is one of a series of works on Social Anthropology and thus has a theoretical relevance related to this discipline. The author's discussion is within the context of the problem: how do unilineal descent groups (such as the lineage) function in socially differentiated and politically centralised societies? In terms of China it is more specifically: how did locally based Chinese lineages fit into complex society at the local level?
But this theoretical concern, directed to the specialist, should not dismay the non-specialist looking for new facts and ideas on how Chinese kinship worked, and to some extent still works here today, above the level of the family. The functioning of the lineage is not a subject which lends itself to a popular "things Chinese" description. If we want precise information we must go to the expert. We cannot have things both ways.