256
MAURICE FREEDMAN
worker should be able to do more than simply indicate what rules are being applied: he should be in a position to trace the trends in opinion towards modifying these rules and so throw light, by the aid of this special class of facts, on the problems of judgment which administrators may need to make or help to make.
96. At various places in this report I have touched on questions concerning the family. Obviously, whatever kinds of research anthropologists may undertake in the New Territories will deal with the family at some point: the division of labour within it, marriage, use of housing, land ownership, inheritance, ancestor worship, and so on. But the subject is so important and the range of variations to be studied so wide that at some stage a general review of the whole of it will need to be made. It is a big task and will call for the services of an experienced research worker. Let me suggest some of the practical advantages of such an investigation. The Chinese family constantly throws up quarrels and difficulties which, while they certainly conflict with the image of the harmonious family which Chinese have created and foisted on to foreigners, are nevertheless intrinsic to its structure. The main point of weakness, so to say, in this structure is the relationship between brothers, for they are on the one hand required to live in harmony with one another and observe an order of seniority among themselves, and on the other hand expected to compete. The conflict generated between them is not to be seen only in how they treat one another; it is reflected in the relationships between their respective wives. It is an at first curious fact—at least a fact in the sense that research increasingly tends to come to this conclusion—that quarrels in Chinese families are reduced when men are away; and the quarrelsomeness that Chinese men attribute to their womenfolk is more a product of their position as wives, with obligations to support the interests of their husbands, than it is a property of womankind. The tensions between brothers can be kept under control while their parents are still alive and active, but with the passing of the power of this senior generation a family compounded of married brothers cannot survive as a single unit. This is part of the reason why families do not go on increasing in size until they reach the enormous proportions sometimes claimed for them. But in fact even the family of several married brothers and their parents is not so common as is supposed, because poor families do not raise many sons to manhood, cannot marry them all off if they do have them, and can offer little economic incentive to them to stay at home.
256
MAURICE FREEDMAN
worker should be able to do more than simply indicate what rules are being applied: he should be in a position to trace the trends in opinion towards modifying these rules and so throw light, by the aid of this special class of facts, on the problems of judgment which administrators may need to make or help to make.
96. At various places in this report I have touched on questions concerning the family. Obviously, whatever kinds of research anthropologists may undertake in the New Territories will deal with the family at some point: the division of labour within it, marriage, use of housing, land ownership, inheritance, ancestor worship, and so on. But the subject is so important and the range of variations to be studied so wide that at some stage a general review of the whole of it will need to be made. It is a big task and will call for the services of an experienced research worker. Let me suggest some of the practical advantages of such an investigation. The Chinese family constantly throws up quarrels and difficulties which, while they certainly conflict with the image of the harmonious family which Chinese have created and foisted on to foreigners, are never- theless intrinsic to its structure. The main point of weakness, so to say, in this structure is the relationship between brothers, for they are on the one hand required to live in harmony with one another and observe an order of seniority among themselves, and on the other hand expected to compete. The conflict generated between them is not to be seen only in how they treat one another; it is reflected in the relationships between their respective wives. It is an at first curious fact—at least a fact in the sense that research increasingly tends to come to this conclusion-that quarrels in Chinese families are reduced when men are away; and the quarrelsomeness that Chinese men attribute to their womenfolk is more a product of their position as wives, with obligations to support the interests of their husbands, than it is a property of womankind. The tensions between brothers can be kept under control while their parents are still alive and active, but with the passing of the power of this senior generation a family compounded of married brothers cannot sur- vive as a single unit, This is part of the reason why families do not go on increasing in size until they reach the enormous proportions sometimes claimed for them. But in fact even the family of several married brothers and their parents is not so common as is supposed, because poor families do not raise many sons to manhood, cannot marry them all off if they do have them, and can offer little economic incentive to them to stay at home.
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