閤 The Named and the Nameless: Gender and person in Chinese society OR。 Rubie s. watson American Ethnologist, Vol. 13, No 4.(Nov, 1986), pp. 619-631 Stable url: http://inksistor.org/sici?sic0094-0496%028198611%02913%3a4%03c619%03atnatng%3e2.0.co%03b2-q American Ethnologist is currently published by American Anthropological Association Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.htmlJstOr'sTermsandConditionsofUseprovidesinpartthatunlessyouhaveobtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the jsTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that ap on the screen or printed page of such transmission STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor. org http:/www.jstor.org Fri jan1919:53:512007
The Named and the Nameless: Gender and Person in Chinese Society Rubie S. Watson American Ethnologist, Vol. 13, No. 4. (Nov., 1986), pp. 619-631. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0094-0496%28198611%2913%3A4%3C619%3ATNATNG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q American Ethnologist is currently published by American Anthropological Association. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/anthro.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.org Fri Jan 19 19:53:51 2007
the named and the nameless gender and person in Chinese society RUBIES. WATSON-University of Pittsburgh In Chinese society names classify and individuate, they have transformative powers, and they are an important form of self expression. Some names are private, some are chosen for their public effect. Many people have a confusing array of names while others are nameless. the theory and practice of personal naming in Chinese society is extremely complex and unfort nately little studied For the male villagers of rural Hong Kong, naming marks important social transitions: the more names a man has the more " socialized" and also, in a sense the more"individuated he becomes To attain social adulthood a man must have at least two names but most have more. By the time a male reaches middle age, he may be known by four or five names. village women, by contrast, are essentially nameless. Like boys, infant girls are named when they are one month old, but unlike boys they lose this name when they marry. Adult women are known (in reference and address) by kinship terms, teknonyms, or category terms such as"ol woman In Chinese society personal names constitute an integral part of the language of joking, of asting and of exhibiting ones education and erudition the chinese themselves are fasci- nated by personal names: village men enjoy recounting stories about humorous or clumsy names, educated men appreciate the elegance of an auspicious name, and all males worry about the quality of their own names and those of their sons. to a large extent women are excluded from this discourse. They cannot participate because in adulthood they are not named, nor do they name others. Until very recently the majority of village women were illit- erate and so could not engage in the intellectual games that men play with written names Women were not even the subjects of these conversations The namelessness of adult women and their inability to participate in the naming of others highlights in a dramatic way the vast gender distinctions that characterize traditional Chinese culture. The study of names gives us considerable insight into the ways in which gender and person are constructed in Chinese society. Judged against the standard of men the evidence presented here suggests that village women do not, indeed cannot, attain full personhood. The lives of men are punctuated by the acquisition of new names, new roles, new responsibilities d new privileges; womens lives, in comparison, remain indistinct and indeterminate Personal naming provides an insight into the construction of gender and person in Chinese society. The process of naming marks important social tra Chinese men: the more names a man has the more socialized and also, in a sense the more individuated he becomes. By contrast, married women in rural China are essentially nameless. If personhood is a process of social growth, judged against the standard of men, the evidence presented here suggests that Chinese women do not, indeed cannot, attain full personhood. Naming, gender, person, literacy the named and the nameless 619
In his essay"'Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali, Clifford Geertz argues that our social world is populated not by anybodies. , but by somebodies, concrete classes of determinate per- sons positively characterized and appropriately labeled"(1973: 363). It is this process by which anybodies are converted into somebodies that concerns me here Do men and women become omebodies'in the same way? Are they made equally determinate, positively characterized Although this discussion is based primarily on field research carried out in the Hong Kong New Territories, examples of naming practices have been drawn from other areas of Chinese culture as well. It is difficult to determine the extent to which the patterns described in this paper are indicative of rural China in general. Available evidence suggests that there is considerable overlap between Hong Kong patterns of male naming and those of preliberation Chinese so- ciety and present-day rural Taiwan(see for example Eberhard 1970; Kehl 1971; Sung 1981 Wu 1927). Unfortunately, there have been no studies that specifically examine the differences tween men 's and womens naming, although brief references in martin Yangs study of a Shantung village(1945: 124)and in Judith Stacey's account of women in the People's Republic (1983: 43, 131)suggest that the gender differences discussed here are not unique to Hong Kong In making these statements I do not wish to suggest that there are no substantial differences in ersonal naming between rural Hong Kong and other parts of China. a general survey of per onal naming in China, especially one that takes the postrevolution era into account, has yet This paper draws heavily on ethnographic evidence gathered in the village of Ha Tsuen, a Tsuen share the surname Teng and trace descent to a common ancestor who settled in this region during the 12th century (see R. Watson 1985). For most villagers postmarital residence is virilocal/patrilocal. The Ha Tsuen Teng practice surname exogamy, which in the case of a single-lineage village means that all wiv from outside th ty. These women arrive in Ha Tsuen as strangers and their early years of marriage are spent accommodating to a new family and new community The Teng find this completely natural; daughters, 'they say, are born looking out; they belong to others Patrilineal values dominate social life in Ha Tsuen Women are suspect because they are outsiders. As Margery Wolf points out, Chinese women are both marginal and essential to the families into which they marry (1972: 35). They are necessary because they produce the next generation, yet as outsiders their integration is never complete. Women are economically de pendent on the family estate but they do not have shareholding rights in that estate. Half the village land in Ha Tsuen is owned by the lineage(see R. Watson 1985: 61-72), and the other half is owned by private(male)landlords. Women have no share in this land; they do not own movable property nor do they have rights to inherit it. Few married women are employed in wage labor, and since the villagers gave up serious agriculture in the 1960s, most women are dependent on their husbands paychecks for family income. At the time I conducted my re- search(1977-78)Ha Tsuen had a population of approximately 2500-all of whom are Can tones speakers. naming an infant Among the Cantonese a child ' s soul is not thought to be firmly attached until at least 30 days after its birth. during the first month of life the child and mother are secluded from all but the immediate family. After a month has passed, the child is considered less susceptible to soul loss and is introduced into village life. The infant is given a name by his or her father or grandfather at a ceremony called"full month"(man yueh). If the child is a son, the "full month"festivities will be as elaborate as the family can afford; if, on the other hand, a girl is born, there may be 620 american ethnologist
little or no celebration (except, perhaps, a special meal for family members). The naming cer dis,ny for a boy normally involves a banquet for neighbors and village elders, along with the ribution of red eggs to members of the community The first name a child is given is referred to as his or her ming 2 This name (ming)may be based on literary or classical allusions. It may express a wish for the childs or familys future or it may enshrine some simple event that took place at or near the time of the childs birth. Examples of this kind of naming are found not only in Ha Tsuen but in other areas of China as well. Arlington, in an early paper on Chinese naming, describes how the name "sleeve"was given to a girl of his acquaintance who at the time of her birth had en wrapped in a sleeve(1923: 319). In the Peoples Republic of China, people born during the Korean War might be called"Resist the United States"(Fan- mei)or"Aid Korea"(Pang ch'ao). Alternatively, children may be given the name of their birthplace, for example "Born in Anhwei"(Hui-sheng) or"Thinking of Yunnan"(Hsiang-yun). In the past girl babies might be named Nai ("To Endure"). This name was given to infant girls who survived an attempted infanticide. One way of killing an infant was to expose it to the elements. If a girl survived this ordeal, she might be allowed to live. In these cases the name Nai commemorated the childs feat of survival a childs name may express the parents' desire for no more children. For instance, in Taiwan a fifth or sixth child may be named Beui, a Hokkien term meaning""Last Child. Alternatively, a father may try to assure that his next child will be a son by naming a newborn daughter " Joined to Brother"( Lien-ti). There are several girls with this name in Ha Tsuen. a father or grandfather might express his disappointment or disgust by naming a second or third daughter " Too Many"(A-to) or"Little Mistake"(Hsiao-t so) or"Reluctant to Feed"(Wang-shih).A sickly child might be given the name of a healthy child. my informants told me that a long awaited son may be given a girl's name to trick the wandering ghosts into thinking the child had no value and therefore could be ignored(see also Sung 1981: 81-82). For example, a Ha Tsuen villager, who was the only son of a wealthy family(born to his fathers third concubine) was known by everyone as"Little Slave Girl"(in Cantonese, Mui-jai In most cases the infant receives a ming during the full month ceremony but this name is little sed. For the first year or two most children are called by a family nickname ("milk name"or nai ming). Babies are sometimes given milk names like"Precious"(A-pao), or A-buh(mimick ing the sounds infants make)or"Eldest Luck, "or"Second Luck, "indicating sibling ord Some care and consideration is given to a child s ming, especially if it is a boy. By referring to the Confucian classics or by alluding to a famous poem, the name may express the learning and sophistication of the infants father or grandfather. The name, as we will see, may also save the child from an inauspicious fate. Commonly girls' names(ming)are less distinctive and less considered than are boys names. And, as we have seen, girls' names may also be less flattering "Too Many"or"Little Mistake. " Often a general, classificatory name is given to an infant girl Martin Yang reports from rural Shantung that Hsiao-mei("Little Maiden")was a"generic"girls name in his village (1945: 124). Most Chinese personal names are composed of two characters, which follow the one char- acter surname(for example, Mao Tse-tung or Teng Hsiao-ping). One of the characters of the ming may be repeated for all the children of the same sex in the family or perhaps all sons born into the lineage one generation (for example, a generation or sibling set might hat personal names like Hung-hui, Hung-chi, Hung-sheng and so on. ) Birth order may also be indicated in the child's name. In these cases part of the name indicates group affiliation and sibling order. However, one of the characters is unique to the individual and so the child distinguished from his siblings. a variation on this theme occurs when a parent or grandparer elects a name for all sons or grandsons from a group of characters that share a single element (known as the radical--a structured component found in every chinese character), For exam ple, Margaret Sung (1981: 80)in her survey of Chinese naming practices on Taiwan notes that the named and the nameless 621
in some families all son s names may be selected from characters that contain the"man"rad ical (for example names like"Kind"len), "Handsome'IChunl, or"Protect"(Paol) Individuation of the name, Sung points out, is very strong in Chinese society (1981: 88). There s no category of words reserved specifically for personal names and care is taken to make names (particularly boys names)distinct. The Chinese find the idea of sharing ones given name with millions of other people extraordinary. 5 In Taiwan, Sung notes that individuation of one's name is so important that the government has established a set of rules for name changes (1981: 88). According to these regulations a name can be changed when two people with ex- actly the same name live in the same city or county or have the same place of work. ""Inelegant names or names shared with wanted criminals can also be changed In Ha Tsuen a boy might be named, in Cantonese, Teng Tim-sing, which translates Teng"To Increase Victories", another person could be called Teng Hou-sing "Reliably Accomplish ( Teng being the shared surname). Parents, neighbors, and older siblings will address the child or young unmarried adult(male or female) by his or her ming or by a nickname. Younger sib- lings are expected to use kin terms in addressing older siblings. It should be noted that, in con- trast to personal names, Chinese surnames do not convey individual meaning When used in a sentence or poem, the character mao(the same character used in Mao Tse-tung)means ha fur, feathers, but when it is used as a surname it does not carry any of these connotations ne power of names: names that change ones luck Names classify people into families, generational sets, and kin groups. ideally, Chinese per- sonal names also have a unique quality. Personal names carry meanings; they express wishes (for more sons or no more daughters), mark past events ("Sleeve"or"Endure"), and convey a amily's learning and status. beyond this rather restricted sense there is, however, another level of meaning. According to Chinese folk concepts each person has a unique constitution-a dif- ferent balance of the five elements(fire, water, metal, earth and wood) when the child is about ne month old a family will usually have a diviner cast the childs horoscope. The horoscope consists of eight characters(pa tzu)two each for the hour, day, month and year of birth. the combination of these characters determines in part what kind of person one is (what kind of haracteristics one has) and what will happen in future years. However, the pa tzu do not rep- resent destiny: one is not bound to act out this fate By means of esoteric knowledge a persons fate can be changed. Perhaps the most common method of accomplishing such a change is through naming. For example, if one of the five elements is missing from a person s constitution or is not properly balanced with other ele- ments, the name(ming)may then include a character with the radical for that element. In the event of illness the diviner may suggest that the patient suffers from an imbalance of wood and that the radical for this element be added to the childs name. In such a case the character mei (plum), for example, may replace one of the original characters of the ming and thus save the child from a bad fate, illness, or perhaps death Mei achieves this astounding feat not because there is anything intrinsically wood-like about mei but because the written character mei has two major components: mu, the radical for wood and another symbol that is largely phoneti It is the written form of the character that is important here; in spoken Chinese there is nothing at suggests that mei has within it the element wood i will return to this point later. Significantly, it is not only ones own horoscope that matters; one must also be in balance with the horoscopes of parents, spouses, and offspring It is particularly important that the five elements of mother and child be properly matched to ensure mutual health. If conditions of conflict arise and nothing is done to resolve this conflict the child may become ill and even die. A name change, however, can rectify the situation. It is obvious that Chinese personal names do things: they not only classify and distinguish but also have an efficacy in their own 622 american ethnologist
gender differences and the written name s noted above even in childhood there are important gender distinctions in naming. Girls nearly always have less elaborate full month rituals than their brothers, and less care is taken in choosing girls' names. The greatest difference between the sexes, however, pertains not to the aesthetics of naming but to the written form of the name Until the 1960s in Ha Tsuen and in rural Hong Kong generally births were seldom registere with government agencies. Except in cases of a bad fate, there was no compelling reason for girls' names ever to appear in written form. There was rarely any need to attach their names to legal documents. Girls did not inherit land they had no rights in property, and their given names were not entered in genealogies (on this point see also Hazelton 1986)or on ancestral tablets(see below). Until the 1960s girls rarely attended primary schools. Consequently, nearly all village women born prior to 1945 cannot write or recognize their own names Commenting on the role of nicknames, Wolfram Eberhard makes the point that in spoken Chinese with its many homonyms, a two-word combination may fail to express clearly what the speaker wants to convey. The intended meaning of a name(that is, the two-character ming is only apparent when it is written. Nicknames, Eberhard notes, are not normally meant to be written and, hence, are usually longer (often three or four characters)than a persons ming ( 1970: 219). Given the ambiguities a great deal of play is possible with the spoken form of names. For example, Hsin-mei can mean"New Plum"or"Faithful beauty" depending on the tones that one uses in pronouncing the characters. In the written form the meaning of this name is perfectly clear, but in the spoken form it can be misunderstood or misconstrued, sometim with disastrous consequences. The manchu( Ch'ing) authorities played the naming game when they changed the written form of one of Sun Yat-sens many names. During Suns long political career, he used a variety of names and aliases(see Sharman 1934), one being Sun Wen(wen translates as"elegant, ""civil, ""culture"). In Manchu attacks on Sun the character wen pro- nounced with a rising tone (elegant, culture)was replaced by another character wen pro- ounced with a falling tone(which translates as defile"). The change was effected simply by adding the water radical to the term for elegant. Wen(defile), it should be noted was also the name of a famous criminal in southern China during the last years of manchu rule Upon seeing a persons written name, the beholder may comment on the beauty the refine ment, the auspicious connotations of the characters. As long as it is simply spoken, however, it is in a sense "just a name, Although women have names, these do not convey as much information as do mens names, for the obvious reason that the former were rarely written. Until recently New Territories women were not given names with a view to their written effect. The written form of "Too many"'may be offensive or unpleasant in a way that the spoken form is Given that it is the written form of names that has force that informs that can be used to change a bad fate there is justification for thinking that those whose names are rarely or never written are at some disadvantage Girls, it would appear, did not have names in the same way that boys did. It is also clear that girls' names are less expressive, less individuating than their brothers names are. Fathers strove to make son s names distinctive, unique -whereas girls' names tended to classify(for example Endure, Little Maiden)or to be used as a vehicle for changing circumstances external to the girl herself (for example, Joined to Brother). Many girls of course had names like Splendid Orchid, Morning Flower, Resembling Jade, but in general ey were more likely than were their brothers to be given negative names, stereotypic names, or goal-oriented names. These gender distinctions are significant but the contrast between men and women becomes even more dramatic when we consider adult naming practices ens namIng When a ha Tsuen man marries he is given or takes (often he chooses the name himself)a marriage name, or tzu. Considering the importance of the written name it is significant that tzu he named and the nameless 623
is the same character that is commonly used for"word"or"ideograph. " The marriage name is given in a ceremony called sung tzu, which literally means"to deliver written characters This ceremony is an integral part of the marriage rites and is held after the main banquet on the In Ha Tsuen, the marriage name (always two characters) is written on a small rectangular iece of red paper and is displayed in the main reception hall of the grooms house(alterna ively, it may be hung in the grooms branch ancestral hall this name is chosen with regard to its effect in the written form. Great care is taken in choosing the characters; they often have origins in the Confucian classics. In Ha Tsuen one of the two characters of this marriage name usually shared by a lineage generational set. In some kin groups a respected scholar may be asked to choose a poem or aphorism to be used in generational naming Each generation will then take in turn one character of the poem as part of their(tzu) name. Of course, this makes the selection of an auspicious, learned name more difficult and also more intellectually chal lenging Naming at this level can become a highly complicated game In choosing a marriage name (tzu) the groom demonstrates his sophistication, learning, and goals. Among the people I studied the possession of a marriage name is essential for the at- ainment of male adulthood, which gives a man the right to participate in important lineage and community rituals. In Ha tsuen the correct way to ask whether a man has full ritual rights used as terms of address; they may however, appear in lineage genealogies and in formal doc By the time a man is married he will have acquired a public nickname (wai hao, literally an outside name"). This is usually different from the family nickname he had in infancy or the hool name"given to him by a teacher Nicknames are widely used as terms of address and eference for males in the village; in fact, a man 's birth and marriage names may be largely In a discussion of naming among the llongot, Renato rosaldo emphasizes the process by which names come into being(1984: 13). Rosaldo argues that names are negotiated and that naming, like other aspects of ilongot social life, is a matter of give and take, challenge and response(1984: 22). Rosaldo s approach is particularly useful for understanding Chinese nick naming. Ming(birth namesare formally bestowed by ones seniors, one chooses the tzu(mar- riage name)and, as we will see, the hao(courtesy name)oneself. Nicknames(wai hao), how ever, are negotiated; both the namer and the named play the game. By setting up this dichot- omy between nicknames and other given names, I do not mean to suggest that these two cat- egories have no common features nor that ming, marriage names, and courtesy names are simply the consequence of a set of rigidly applied rules and structures. It is clear, however, that nicknames fit into the transactional world of local politics, friendship and informal groups more comfortably than do formal names. In Chinese society one can gain a reputation for cleverness by giving nicknames that are particularly apt or make witty literary allusions. Chinese nicknames are highly personalized and often refer to idiosyncratic characteristics. They may also be derogatory or critical, whereas one's formal names would never be intentionally unflattering(especially for a man). Nicknames may refer to a physical quality (for example, "" Fatty")or a personal quality ("Stares at the Sky for someone who is a snob). Nicknames may also protect ("Little Slave girl")or they may alize, at least temporarily, unequal relationships. The richest and most powerful man in one New Territories village was nicknamed"Little Dog. "In one respect this was a useful nickname for an extremely wealthy man whose political career depended on being accepted by everyone in the community. Rather than rejecting his derogatory nickname he embraced it. In Ha Tsuen when a man reaches middle age or when he starts a business career he usually takes a hao""or"courtesy"name. A man chooses this name himself. Sung notes that h names are"usually dissyllabic or polysyllabic, and (arel selected by oneself based] upo 624 american ethnologist
whatever one would like to be(1981: 86). Some people have more than one courtesy name The h public name par excellence. Such names, Eberhard points out, are often used on occasions when a man wants"to make his personal identity clear without revealing his per sonal name(ming(1970: 219). In the past, and to some extent today the ming was consid ered to be too intimate, too personal to be used outside a circle of close friends and kin(Eber hard 1970: 218). The Chinese I know hide their names writes maxine Hong Kingston in Woman Warrior; "sojourners take new names when their lives change and guard their real names with silence"(1977: 6) Sung notes that hao names are no longer popular in present-day taiwan except among high government officials (1981: 86). However, in Hong Kong hao are still widely used; they are commonly found for example, on business cards and of course many painters or writers sign their work with a hao ense courtesy names are different from birth and marriage names. One achieves a courtesy name. They are a mark of social and economic status, and a poor man who gives himself such a name may be accused of putting on airs. Any man may take a hao but if he not aman of substance, the hao is likely to remain unknown and unused. with poor men or politically insignificant men these names, if they have them at all, may appear only in geneal ogies or on tombstones Some Ha Tsuen men have posthumous names(shih-hao) that they take themselves or have conferred upon them by others. Among the imperial elite posthumous names or titles were given to honor special deeds. In the village however taking or giving a shih-hao is left to dividual taste. The practice has declined in recent years The preceding discussion suggests that names mark stages in a mans social life. The posses- ion of a birth name, school name, nickname, marriage name, courtesy name and posthumous name attest to the fact that a man has passed through the major stages of social adulthood By the time a man reaches middle age he has considerable control over his names and naming le names others(his children or grandchildren, for example)and he chooses his own marriage courtesy,and posthumous names. He also has some control over the use of these names. this is especially true of a successful businessman or politician whose business associates may only know his courtesy name, his drinking friends one of his nicknames, his lineage-mates his birth name, and so on. The use of names is situational and involves some calculation both on the part of the named and those with whom he interacts Beidelman, in an article on naming among the Kaguru of Tanzania, emphasizes the point that the choice of name reflects the relation between the speaker and the person to whom he speaks(1974: 282; see also Willis 1982). The choice of one name or another, or the use of a kin term rather than a personal name, is a tactical decision In Ha Tsuen the use of nicknames pet names, birth names, courtesy names is, like the use of kin terms, highly contextual Intimates may address each other by a nickname when they are among friends but not when strangers are present, family nicknames may be used in the household but not outside of it birth names and surnames with titles may be used in formal introductions but not in other settings. A man might be addressed by a kin term or a nickname depending on the speakers goals. One can give respect by using a courtesy name or claim intimacy by using a nickname. In a single lineage village like Ha Tsuen, where all males are agnatic kinsmen, the strategic use of kin terms and personal names provides a fascinating glimpse into social relationships Surprisingly, however, this flexibility does not continue into old age. when a man reaches elderhood at age 61 his ability to control his names diminishes just as his control over his family and corporate resources weakens In Ha Tsuen and in China generally men often hand over headship of the family when they become elders. The village code of respect requires that male elders be addressed by a kin term (for example, in Cantonese ah baak, FeB, or a combi nation of the given name and kin term, for example, ah Tso baak). Only an exceptional man a scholar or wealthy businessman, will continue to be called by one of his personal names after he named and the nameless 625
his 60th birthday. For example, no villager would dare refer to or address the 93-year-old p triarch of the wealthiest family in Ha Tsuen as ah baak. In general, however, with advancing ge the playful aspects of names and naming are taken away as is a mans power to transact his name. In old age a man has little control over what he is called and in this respect hi situation is similar to that of a married woman. As with wives, old men have left (or are leaving) the world of public and financial affairs to become immersed in the world of family and kinship where they are defined not by a set of distinctive names but by their relationship to others o name women At one month a Ha Tsuen girl is given a name(ming); when she marries this name ceases be used. Marriage is a critical rite of passage for both men and women but the effect of this rite on the two sexes is very different. Just as a mans distinctiveness and public role are enhanced by his marriage and his acquisition of a marriage name, the marriage rites relegate the woman to the inner world of household, neighborhood and family. On the one hand the marriage rites seek to enhance the young bride s fertility but on the other hand, and in a more negative vein, they also dramatize the bride's separation from her previous life and emphasize the pro- hibitions and restrictions that now confine her. when the young bride crosses her husbands threshold, what distinctiveness she had as a girl is thrust aside It is at this point that she loses her name and becomes the"inner person"(nei jen), a term Chinese husbands use to refer to While the groom is receiving his marriage name on the first day of marriage rites, his bride being given an intensive course in kinship terminology by the elderly women of Ha Tsuen Marriage ritual provides a number of occasions for the formal, ritualized exchange of kin terms (for a description of marriage rites in Ha Tsuen see R. Watson 1981). These exchanges, which always feature the bride, instruct the new wife and daughter-in-law in the vast array of kin terms she must use for her husband s relatives. The prevalence of virilocal/patrilocal residence means that the groom remains among the kin with whom he has always lived It is the bride who must grasp a whole new set of kin terms and learn to attach these terms to what must seem a bewil dering array of people. Two women resident in the groom s village (called in Cantonese choi gaa,"bride callers")act as the brides guides and supporters during the three days of marriage rites, and it is their responsibility to instruct the bride in the kin terminology she will need der to survive in her ne These ritualized exchanges of kin terms do more however than serve as a pedagogic exer cise; they also locate and anchor the bride in a new relational system. As the groom acquires his new marriage name-a name, it should be noted that denotes both group or category mem- bership and individual distinctiveness-the bride enters a world in which she exists only in relation to others. She is no longer"grounded"by her own special name(ming), however saic that name might have been; after marriage she exists only as someone's eBw or yBW or as Sing s mother, and so on. Eventually even these terms will be used with decreasing fre quency; as she approaches old age, she will be addressed simply as"old woman"(ah po) by all but her close kin When i first moved into Ha Tsuen, i quickly learned the names of the male residents (mostly nicknames), But for the women I, like other villagers, relied on kin terms or category terms. Significantly the rules that govern the use of these terms are not dependent on the age of the function of the lineage generation of their husbands Women married to men of an ascending generation to the speaker (or the speakers husband may be addressed as ah suk po (a local expression meaning FyBW)or by the more formal ah sam(also meaning FyBW) For women married to men of one s own generation (male ego)the terms ah sou (eBW)or, if one wanted to give added respect, ah sam(FyBW) may be used erican ethnol
a woman may also be referred to by the nickname of her husband plus"leung"(for example, ah Keung leung), or by a teknonym For their part married women ordinarily use kin terms for their husbands' agnates and for other women in the village i was told that a woman must use kin terms for men older in age or generation than her husband. Between husband and wife teknonyms are often used so that the father of Tim-sing might address his wife as ah Sing nai (ah is a prefix denoting familiarity, Sing is part of the son s ming, nai is "mother"or, literally, lk").In addressing their husbands, women might use nicknames; my neighbor always called her husband"Little Servant. "10 Although there is some flexibility in deciding what to call a woman, the reference and ad dress terms used for women in Ha Tsuen are very rigid compared to those employed for men Furthermore, among women there is no possibility of self-naming Men name themselves, women are named by others Similarly Ha tsuen women are more restricted than their hus- bands in the tactical use they can make of names and kin terms. Whereas a man may refer to or address his neighbor by his nickname("Fatty"), his ming (ah Tim), or by a kin term, decorum dictates that his wife use either a kin term appropriate to her husbands generation or one ap- propriate to her children. In Cantonese society, and presumably in China generally, adults often address and refer to each other by a version of the kin term their children would use for that person. I suspect, but at this point cannot document, that women are far more likely to do this While it is true that a man has little choice in the reference or address terms he uses for women, he does have considerable freedom in distinguishing among his male acquaintances, friends, and kin. Women, as outlined above have a restricted repertoire for both sexes. In this sense adult women may be said to carry a particularly heavy burden for guarding the kinship exual order. No adult woman is free to act alone or to be treated as if she were indepen The terms by which she is addressed and the terms she uses to address others serve constant reminders of the hierarchical relations of gender, age and generation As men grow older, as they become students, marry, start careers, take jobs and eventually repare for ancestorhood, their new names anchor them to new roles and privileges. These names are not, however only role markers or classifiers. Ideally they assign people to cate gories and at the same time declare their uniqueness. The pattern of naming in Chinese society resents an ever changing image of men viewed from this perspective Chinese males are al ways growing becoming, accumulating new responsibilities and new rights Peasant women, on the other hand experience few publicly validated life changes, and e that they do undergo link them ever more securely to stereotyped roles. Women s naming es little room for individuation or self-expression Unlike males, whose changes are marked by both ascribed (for example, elderhood and achieved criteria(such as student, scholar, busi- nessman, writer, politician), a womans changes(from unmarried virgin to married woman from nonmother to mother, from reproducer to nonreproducer)are not related to achievement outside the home. Instead of acquiring a new name at marriage or the birth of a first child women s changes are marked by kin terminology or category shifts. At marriage the bride loses her ming and becomes known by a series of kin terms. At the birth of a child she may add a teknonym("Sing s mother"), and as she approaches and enters old age more and more people will address her simply as "old woman""(ah po) The most dramatic changes that women make are the shift from named to unnamed at mar riage and the gradual shift from kin term to category term as their children mature and marry. It would appear that as a womans reproductive capacity declines, she becomes less grounded in the relational system. She becomes, quite simply, an"old woman"much like any other old woman. Of course, family members continue to use kin terms for these elderly women, espe- cially in reference and address, but gradually their anonymity increases. Unlike men, women do not become elders. There is no ceremony marking their entry into respected old age. They the named and the nameless 627
