Chinese kinship

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The Chinese kinship system (simplified Chinese: 亲属系统; traditional Chinese: 親屬系統; pinyin: qīnshǔ xìtǒng) is among the most complicated of all the world's kinship systems. It maintains a specific designation for almost every member's kin based on their generation, lineage, relative age, and gender. The traditional system was agnatic, based on patriarchal power, patrilocal residence, and descent through the male line. Although there has been much change in China over the last century, especially after 1949, there has also been substantial continuity. In the extended family, every child, from birth, participated in an organized system of kinship relations involving elder brothers, sisters, maternal elder brothers' wives, and various aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and in-laws. These relationships were precisely named and differentiated. The kinship system influences every aspect of Chinese custom and morality and even law - the rights and duties they entailed were even enshrined in the...

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