Home>Course>Chinese Family and Marriage>CHES2101/ CCSS2120

Family matters. According to Confucianism, it is the family not the individual that has been the fundamental unit of Chinese society. After Mao’s socialist revolutions and Deng’s market-oriented economic reforms, how have family structures, courtship patterns, and gender relations been changing across different regions and groups? And what new ethical configurations and new forms of inequality are emerging in the process? This English-taught course goes beyond the idealized family patterns to examine critically recent transformations in family forms, reproductive technologies, politicized sexualities, and gender relations in China. After an introductory discussion of key concepts and debates on Chinese family and marriage, it will move on to specific ethnographic case studies to highlight the connections between everyday practices and large-scale political and socioeconomic processes. Readings, drawn from anthropology, history, and sociology, examine the Chinese (Han and non-Han) family systems, marriage patterns and gender relations as well as their transformations during the Maoist and post-Mao eras. Case studies of contemporary social challenges facing Chinese families will also be discussed in depth.

Jan. 11 Introduction: Chinese Family in Transformation

Jan. 18 Kinship and Lineage

Jan. 25 No Class, Lunar New Year Vacation

Feb. 1 Marriage, Family, and Gender I

Feb. 8 Marriage, Family, and Gender II

Feb. 15 Reproduction and Childrearing

Feb. 22 Love and Sexuality

Mar. 1 Family and Marriage among Non-Han Groups

Mar. 8 NO Class, Reading Week

Mar. 15 Contemporary challenges I: Doing Family

Mar. 22 Contemporary challenges II: Parenting

Mar. 29 Contemporary challenges III: Property

Apr. 5 NO Class, Public Holiday

Apr. 12 Contemporary challenges IV: “Left-over Women”…and Men

Apr. 19 Course Wrap-up and Individual Consultation