Fenjia : Household Division and Inheritance in Qing and Republican China

The division of household property in agricultural societies lies at the centre of the transmission of economic control from one generation to the next. In assembling a body of data concerned with fenjia (household division) in Qing and Republican China, this text investigates one of the central topics in understanding how Chinese society functioned and continues to function. In his presentation of case studies of household division, the author determines that equal division was the rule, yet living parents and single siblings had property rights as well. Variations in inheritance orientations had dramatic effects on landownership patterns, lineage property patterns, lineage strength, class formations and even on state efficiency and its influence on village society. The text explores social class, women and the nuclear family, family documents and law in order to weave the different traditions into a vision of how inheritance, family, lineage and state interacted over the course of Qing and Republican China.

Determined to be a U.S. Marine Corps officer, Bruce Yamashita enrolled in Officer Candidate School, where he was the target of persistent racial harassment by officers and staff. After enduring nine weeks of emotional and physical abuse, Yamashita was "disenrolled" in April 1989 - kicked out of the Marine Corps because of the color of his skin. Fighting Tradition is Yamashita's own story of his courageous struggle to expose a pattern of racial discrimination against minorities that has existed at various levels of the Corps.

With the support of a broad coalition of community and civil rights organizations, the Hawaii-born law school graduate fought a five-year-long legal, political, and media battle against the military establishment that ended in his commissioning as a captain and the revision of Marine Corps policies and procedures. Fighting Tradition not only is a moving story of personal sacrifice and vision, but contributes also both directly and indirectly to our understanding of the complexities of institutional racism in a politically conservative, demographically shifting society. It is a unique window into the dynamics of race, government, and the law and a stirring reminder of the importance of political mobilization by the individual to achieve justice.

Contents List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2 .Inheritance Law and Practice before the Qing Chapter 3. Qing Household Division: Why, When, and How? Chapter 4 .The Rights of Individuals in Qing Taiwan Chapter 5. Dividing Different Types of Property in Qing Taiwan Chapter 6 .Household Division Disputes in Qing Courts Chapter 7. Republican Rural North China Chapter 8. Region and Class: Exceptions, Strategies, and Orientations Chapter 9. Household Division and Society: Land, Orientations, and Social Mobility Chapter 10 .Conclusions and Speculations Appendix 1. China’s Laws on Inheritance Appendix 2. Historical Sources and Their Limits Appendix 3 .Chinese Terms for Weights and Measures Appendix 4: Chinese Terms for Guarantors on Household Division Documents, by Province Appendix 5: Common Terms for Household Division Documents, by Province