C. MARTIN WILBUR
goes on in his social environment. He feels morally responsible, and realizes that he may be held legally so, for the behavior of the members of his family certainly, and to some extent of all his neighbors.
III
The general structure of the Chinese family is pyramidal. This is true both for the largest unit, the clan, and for the smallest group, the individual sex family. At the head of each family unit stands an individual usually called Chia-chang (家長). It is of value to consider the attributes of this Chia-chang because he is the basic unit of village government, the link between the family and the larger group of neighbors. Moreover, he is the prototype of the village elder, who stands somewhat in the same legal and psychological position in the village as does the Chia-chang in his immediate family. The customary, ethical and legal sanctions which reinforce the Chia-chang reinforce also the village elder. There is no more perfect example, in fact, of the generical relationship between the family and all other social institutions in China.
In the simple sex family the father is usually Chia-chang, or after his death, the mother, if the family is still dependent upon the parental grouping. It was found that in Ching Ho, a village just north of Peiping, of 371 families only ten had women as family heads, and of these nine were widows. In the "larger family" which covers several generations living together by common consent under one roof as a single economic unit, the principle is more complicated. Su, quoting Chinese legal sources, gives the following order for succession to the position: grandfather, grandmother, great paternal uncles, their wives, father, mother, paternal uncles, their wives, elder brothers, their wives2. This systematic order is sometimes broken when the individual who would properly become incumbent is judged to be too young or of questionable character or ability. These qualifications of age and character are most important, and carry over into village government as well. Certainly no system of family or village control could be efficient without some modification from the rigid rule set down by law.
1 Ching Ho a Sociological Analysis; p. 43.
2 Su; op. cit., p. 48; from: Ta Ch'ing Lü Li, sec. 88; and Provisional Civil Code, art. 1324.