Why Chinese women are denied legal land rights
In the interests of order, the party sides with a reactionary majority
In the tea-growing hills of southern China, bonds of blood make villages strong. Most residents of Lüchuwu, a village in the pine-clad highlands of Fujian province, share just two surnames between them. The clout of the Su family, in particular, is shown by a white-walled, red-pillared shrine bearing the inscription: “Su Clan Ancestral Hall”. Yet if family ties bind places like Lüchuwu, those bonds are also conditional. A woman may be born and brought up in a village that her ancestors built. But if she marries a man from elsewhere, custom deems her lost to her birth family and home village, as a waijianü, or “married-out daughter”.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “China’s patriarchy lives on”
From the August 12th 2023 edition
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