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