改! 20X91404p Uterine Families and the women's Community Margery wolf The size and organization of extended families vary fr o one society to the next, but extended families often share some important attrib ates. Thev are most often based on a rule of patrilineal descent. For men, the patrilineal family extends in an unbroken line of ancestors nd descendants. Membership is permanent; loyalty assured. For men, the patrilineal family is temporary. Born into one family and married into another, women discover that their happiness and interests depend on bearing children to create their own uterine fam iy/. This and the importance of a iocal woomen 's group are the sub- jects of this article by Margery Wolf in her discussion of Taiteanese family life. F ew women in China experience the continuity that is typical of the lives of the menfolk. A woman can and, if she is ever to have any eco- nomic security, must provide the links in the male chain of descent, but she will never appear in anyone s genealogy as that all-important name 计:1 ia: Rural Tairan b Wolt witi the per mission oi the publishers, Stan:ord University Press. t 197- b: the Boand ef Trustees of the 1- This material may be protected by copyright law(Title 17 U.S. Code
Margery wol/ onnecting the past to the future. If she dies before she is married, her ablet will not appear on her father's altar; although she was a temporary member of his household, she was not a member of his family. A man is born into his family and remains a member of it throughout his life and even after his death. He is identified with the family from birth, and every that group. Whatever other uncertainties may trouble his life, his place oi action concerning him, up to and including his death, is in the context the line of ancestors provides a permanent setting. There is no such secure setting for a woman. She will abruptly leave the household into which she is born either as an infant or as an adult bride and enter another whose members treat her with suspicion or even hostility ines his family as a large group that not-yet-born, and the living members of his household. But how does a woman define her family? This is not a question that China specialists of- their treatment of the fa seem that a woman s fam y in ge is identical with that of the senior male in the household in which she lives. Although I have never asked, I imagine a Taiwanese man would define a woman's family in very much those same terms. Women, I think, would give quite a different answer. They do not have an unchanging place, assigned at birth, in any group, and their view of the family reflects this en she is a child, a woman,'s family is defined for her by her mother and to some extent by her grandmother. No matter how fond of his daugh ter the father may be, she is only a temporary member of his household and useless to his family--he cannot even marry her to one of his sons as he could an adopted daughter. Her irrelevance to her father's family in turn affects the daughters attitude toward it. It is of no particular interest to her, and the need to maintain its continuity has little meaning for her be yond the fact that this continuity matters a great deal to some of the peo- ple she loves. As a child she probably accepts to some degree her grand- mothers orientation toward the family: the household, that ple who live together and eat together, including perhaps one or more of her fathers married brothers and their children. But the group that has the most meaning for her and with which she will have the most lasting ties is the smaller, more cohesive unit centering on her mother, that is, the uterine family-her mother and her mother's children Father is important to the group, just as grandmother is important to some of the children,but he is not quite a member of it, and for some uterine families he may even be"the enemy. "As the girl grows up and her grandmother dies and a brother or two marries, she discovers that her mother' s definition of the family is becoming less exclusive and may even include such outsiders as her brother's new wife. Without knowing precisely when it happened, she finds that her brothers interests and goals have shifted in a direction she cannot follow. Her mother does not push her aside, but when the mother speaks of the future, she speaks in terms of her sons future. Although th mother sees her uterine family as adding new members and another ger eration, her daughter sees it as dissolving, leaving her with strong partic
Uterine Families and the Women's Commmity ularrelationships, but with no group to which she has permanent loyaltie and o When a young woman marries, her formal ties with the household of her father are severed. In one of the rituals of the wedding ceremony the bride's father or brothers symbolically inform her by means of split water that she, like the water, may never return, and when her wedding sedan chair passes over the threshold of her fathers house, the doors slammed shut behind her. If she is ill-treated by her husbands family, her fathers family may intervene, but unless her parents are willing to bring her home and support her for the rest of her life(and most parents are not), there is little they can do beyond shaming the other family. This is ally enough As long as her mother is alive, the daughter will continue her contacts with her fathers household by as many visits as her new situation allows If she lives nearby she may visit every few days, and no matter where she ves she must at least be allowed to return at New Year After her mother lies her visits may become perfunctory, but her relations with at least one member of her uterine family, the group that centered on her mother, re- life.he trong. Her brother plays an important ritual role throughout hea may gradually lose contact with her sisters as she and they be- ome more involved with their own children, but her relations with her brother continue. When her sons marry, he is the guest of honor at the wedding feasts, and when her daughters marry he must give a small ban uet in their honor. If her sons wish to divide their father's estate, it is their ther s brother who is called on to And when she dies, the coffin cannot be closed until her brother determines to his own satisfaction that she died a natural death and that her husbands family did everything ible to prevent it. With the ritual slam of her father's door on her wedding day, a young woman finds herself quite literally without a family. She enters the house hold of her husband-a man who in an earlier time, say fifty years ago, she would never have met and who even today, in modern rural Taiwan, she is unlikely to know very well. She is an outsider, and for Chinese an outsider is always an object of deep suspicion. Her husband and her father-in-law do not see her as a member of their family. But they do see her as essential to it; they have gone to great expense to bring her into their household for the purpose of bearing a new generation for their family Her mcther-in-iaw, who was mainly responsible for negotiating the terms of her entry, may harbor some resentment over the hard bargaining, but family, A mother-in-law often has the same kind of ambivalence toward her daughter-in-law as she has toward her husband-the younger woman seems a member of her family at times and merelv a member of the househoid at others. The new bride mav find chat her husband s sister is hostile or at best condescending, both attitudes reflecting the daughter's distress at an outsider who seems to be making her wav right into the heart of the famil
Chinese children are taught by proverb, by example, and by experi ence that the family is the source of their security, and relatives the only people who can be depended on. Ostracism from the family is one of the harshest sanctions that can be imposed on erring youth. One of the reasons mainlanders as individuals are considered so untrustworthy on Taiwan is the fact that they are not subject to the controls of(and therefore have no fear of ostracism from) their families. If a timid new bride is considered an object of suspicion and potentially dangerous because she is a stranger, think how uneasy her own first few months must be surrounded by strangers. Her irrelevance to her father's family may result in her having little reverence for descent lines, but she has warm memories of the secu rity of the family her mother created. If she is ever to return to this cer tainty and sense of belonging a woman must create her own uterine fam- ly by bearing children, a goal that happily corresponds to the goals of the family into which she has married. She may gradually create a tolerable niche for herself in the household of her mother-in-law, but her family will not be formed until she herself forms it of her own children and grand children. In most cas the time she adds grandchildren, the uterine family and the household will almost completely overlap, and there will be another daughter-in-law struggling with loneliness and beginning a new uterine famil The ambiguity of a mans position in relation to the uterine families ac- counts for much of the hostility between mother-in-law and daughter-in- is her family. The daughter-in-law might be content with this situation once her sons are old enough to represent her interests in the household and in areas strictly under men s control, but until then, she is dependent on her husband. If she were to be completely absorbed into her mother-in- laws family-a rare occurrence unless she is a simpua-there would be tle or no conflict; but under most circumstances she must rely on her hus- band, her mother-in-laws son, as her spokesman, and here is where the trouble begins. Since it is usually events within the household that she wishes to affect, and the household more or less overlaps with her mother in-laws uterine family, even a minor foray by the younger woman sug- gests to the older one an all-out attack on everything she has worked so hard to build in the years of her own loneliness and insecurity. The birth of grandchildren further complicates their relations, for the one sees them as new members for her family and the other as desperately needed re- cruits to her own small circle of security In summary, my thesis contends, . that because we have heretofore ocused on men when examining the Chinese family-a reasonable ap proach to a patrilineal system-we have missed not only some of the sys tems subtleties but also its near-fatal weaknesses with a male focus we see the Chinese family as a line of descent, bulging to encompass all the members of a man's household and spreading out through his descen- dants. With a female focus, however, we see the Chinese family not as a continuous line stretching between the vague horizons of past and future, but as a contemporary group that comes into existence out of one womans
uterine Families and the Women's Community need and is held together insofar as she has the strength to do so, or, for that matter, the need to do so. After her death the uterine family survives only in the mind of her son and is symbolized by the special attention he gives her earthly remains and her ancestral tablet. The rites themselves are demanded by the ideology of the patriliny, but the meaning they hold for most sons is formed in the uterine family. The uterine family has no ide- ology, no formal structure, and no public existence. It is built out of senti ments and loyalties that die with its members, but it is no less real for all that. The descent lines of men are born and nourished in the uterine fami ies of women, ard it is here that a male ideology that excludes women makes its accommodations with reality Women in rural Taiwan do not live their lives in the walled courtyard of their husbands households. If they did, they might be as powerless as their stereotype. It is in their relations in the outside world(and for women in rural Taiwan that world consists almost entirely of the village) that women develop sufficient backing to maintain some independence under their powerful mothers-in-law and even occasionally to bring the mens world to terms. a successful venture into the men s world is no small feat when one recalls that the men of a village were born there and are often re- lated to one another, whereas the women are unlikely to have either the ties of childhood or the ties of kinship to unite them. All the same, the needs, shared interests, and common problems of women are reflected in every village in a loosely knit society that can when needed be called on to exercise considerable influence house. They wash clothes on the riverbank, clean and pare vegetablesat Women carry on as many of neir activities as possible outside th communal pump, mend under a tree that is a known meetingplace, and stop to rest on a bench or group of stones with other women. There is a continual moving back and forth between kitchens, and conversations are doorways through the iong, hot afternoons of sum- mer. The shy young girl who enters the village as a bride is examined as frankly and suspiciously by the women as an animal that is up for sale. If she is deferential to her elders, does not criticize or compare her new world unfavorably with the one she has left, the older residents will grad ually accept her presence on the edge of their conversations and stop changing the pic to general subjects when she br laundry to scrub on the rocks near them. as the young bride meets other girls in her position, she makes allies for the future, but she must also develop re- lationships with the older women She learns to use considerable discre- tion in making and receiving confidences, for a girl who gossips freely about the affairs of her husband's household may find herself labeled a troublemaker. On the other hand, a girl who is too reticent may find her self always on the outside of the group, or worse yet, accused of snobbery I described in The House of Lin the plight of Lim Chui-ieng, who had little viliage backing in her troubies with her husband and his family as the re- uit of her arrogance toward the women s communitv. In Peihotien the roung wife of the storekeepers son suffered a similar lack of support Warned by her husband ' s parents not to be too"easy".Aith the other t
Margery Wolf lagers lest they try to buy things on credit, she obeyed to the point of be- ing considered unfriendly by the women of the village. When she began to have serious troubles with her husband and eventually his family, there was no one in the village she could turn to for solace, advice, and, most im Once a young bride has established herself as a member of the women s community, she has also established for herself a certain amount of protection. If the members of her husband's family step beyond the lim- its of propriety in their treatment of her--such as refusing to allow her to return to her natal home for her brother's wedding or beating her without serious justification-she can complain to a woman friend, preferably older, while they are washing vegetables at the communal pump.The story will quickly spread to the other women, and one of them will take it on herself to check the facts with another member of the girls household For a few days the matter will be thoroughly discussed whenever a few women gather In a young wife's first few years in the community, she can expect to have her mother-in-laws side of any disagreement given fuller weight than her own--her mother-in-law has, after all, been a part of the community a lot longer. However, the discussion itself will serve to curb many offenses. Even if the older woman knows that public opinion is falling to her side, she will still be somewhat more judicious about refus- ing her daughter-in-laws next request. Still, the daughter-in-law who opes to make use of the village forum to depose her mother-in-law or at least gain herself special privilege will discover just how important the prerogatives of age and length of residence are. Although the women can serve as a powerful protective force for their defenseless younger mem bers, they are also a very conservative force in the village Taiwanese women can and do make use of their collective power to lose face for their menfolk in order to influence decisions that are ostensi bly not theirs to make. Although young women may have little or no in- fluence over their husbands and would not dare express an unsolicited opinion(and perhaps not even a solicited one) to their fathers-in-law older women who have raised their sons properly retain considerable in- fluence over their sons' actions, even in activities exclusive to men . fur ther, older women who have displayed years of good judgment are regu larly consulted by their husbands about major as well as minor economic opinions of their women are never free of their own concept, face.l and social projects. But even men who think themselves free to ignore the much easier to lose face than to have face. We once asked a male friend in Peihotien just what"having face"amounted to. He replied, "When no one is talking about a family, you can say it has face. " This is precisely where women wield their power. When a man behaves in a way that they con sider wrong, they talk about him-not only among themselves, but to their sons and husbands. No one"tells him how to mind his own busi ness, "but it becomes abundantly clear that he is losing face and by con tinuing in this manner may bring shame to the family of his ancestors and descendants. Few men will risk that
Uterine Families and the Women ' s Communit The rules that a Taiwanese man must learn and obey to be a success ful member of his society are well developed, clear, and relatively easy to stay within. A Taiwanese woman must also learn the rules, but if she is to be a successful woman, she must learn not to stay within them, but to ap- pear to stay within them; to manipulate them, but not to appear to be ma nipulating them; to teach them to her children, but not to depend on her hildren for her protection. A truly successful Taiwanese woman is a rugged individualist who has learned to depend largely on herself while appearing to lean on her father, her husband, and her son. The contrast be tween the terrified young bride and the loud, confident, often lewd old woman who has outlived her mother-in-law and her husband reflects the tests met and passed by not strictly following the rules and by making pur- poseful use of those who must. The Chinese male's conception of women as"narrow-hearted"and socially inept may well be his vague recognition of this facet of women's power and technique The women's subculture in rural Taiwan is, i believe below the level of consciousness. Mothers do not tell their about-to-be-married daughters how to establish themselves in village society so that they may have some protection from an oppressive family situation, nor do they warn them to gather their children into an exclusive circle under their own control. But is gro in village society and see their mothers and sisters-in-law ettling their differences to keep them from a public airing or presenting them for the womens community to judge. Their mothers have created around them the meaningful unit in their father's households, and when ey are desperately lonely and unhappy in the households of their hus- bands,what they long for is what they have lost .. [Some] areas in the subculture of women.. mesh perfectly into the main culture of the soci- ety. The two cultures are not symbiotic because they are not sufficiently in- dependent of one another, but neither do they share identical goals or nec- essarily use the same means to reach the goals they do share. Outside the illage the women s subculture seems not to exist. The uterine family also has no public existence, and appears almost as a response to the traditional family organized in terms of a male ideolog REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. According to Wolf, what is a uterine family, and what relatives are likeiy to be members? 2. Why is the uterine family important to Chinese women who live in their husbands patrilineal extended families? 3. What is the relationship between a womans uterine family and her power within her husbands family? 4. Why mich the existence of the uterine family contribute to the division of extended families into smaller constituent par :. How do vou think a Chinese woman's desire to have a uterine family affects attempts to limit the Chinese population?