I'm glad that you brought up infanticide which is something that usually gets glossed over when writing about historical family structure. The monogamous marriage which was almost universal in Europe before chrisitanity was combined after Constantine with the christian bans on cousin marriage, divorce and infanticide to create a family s…
I'm glad that you brought up infanticide which is something that usually gets glossed over when writing about historical family structure. The monogamous marriage which was almost universal in Europe before chrisitanity was combined after Constantine with the christian bans on cousin marriage, divorce and infanticide to create a family structure and a society structure unique to Christendom.
I was surprised to learn from another Substack how widespread brideprice still is in China. This continuous existence makes sense given chinese culture even if the agricultural society that gave birth to this culture has changed.
Confucian traditions place huge value on raising boys, passing the family name and on the son's obligation to care for his elderly parents. The chinese even have different words for grandchildren from their sons and their daughters. These traditions lead to the abortion or infanticide of some of the girls, which in turn leads to an imbalance between sexes (which is apparently awful in rural areas) which leads to continuing the custom of bride price, monies which are often used to pay a bride price for the son or buy him a house.
Thank you! That place causes a lot of guesswork. For example, I had no idea that young women were supposed to spend a month eating chicken (presumably when they get married?) Like a budget version of a honeymoon, but between mother and daughter in law? Interesting stuff, but difficult to understand.
I learned about this custom on that substack, but month sitting is a topic she covers often so she probably didn't add many details on the specific post you mentioned.
In general I've been thinking for many years that I know of too few books about places that are civilized but different, like China and Japan. I'm running a constant low-intensity search for books that explain Chinese and Japanese culture to outsiders, but I'm finding rather little. Maybe there are just as few books that explain Western culture to non-Westerners.
Presumably it was https://weibo.substack.com/ which reports on bride price issues on Chinese social media in a big fraction of posts. It's not clear if this obsession with bride price is a feature of Weibo or just an algorithmic quirk, where the profile used by Moly has become focused on this issue due to ongoing engagement with the topic.
Yes. That's the substack I was talking about. Moly's translations have been focused on topics relating to marriage and kids since the beginning so it's not surprising she covers bride price.
I'm glad that you brought up infanticide which is something that usually gets glossed over when writing about historical family structure. The monogamous marriage which was almost universal in Europe before chrisitanity was combined after Constantine with the christian bans on cousin marriage, divorce and infanticide to create a family structure and a society structure unique to Christendom.
I was surprised to learn from another Substack how widespread brideprice still is in China. This continuous existence makes sense given chinese culture even if the agricultural society that gave birth to this culture has changed.
Confucian traditions place huge value on raising boys, passing the family name and on the son's obligation to care for his elderly parents. The chinese even have different words for grandchildren from their sons and their daughters. These traditions lead to the abortion or infanticide of some of the girls, which in turn leads to an imbalance between sexes (which is apparently awful in rural areas) which leads to continuing the custom of bride price, monies which are often used to pay a bride price for the son or buy him a house.
Could you give me a link to that Substack about contemporary bride prices in China? That sounds like something interesting to read about.
It is Moly’s Substack https://weibo.substack.com/
Thank you! That place causes a lot of guesswork. For example, I had no idea that young women were supposed to spend a month eating chicken (presumably when they get married?) Like a budget version of a honeymoon, but between mother and daughter in law? Interesting stuff, but difficult to understand.
Mothers sit the month after they give birth.
Ah, thank you. I should probably go for something more basic before I read too much of that site.
I learned about this custom on that substack, but month sitting is a topic she covers often so she probably didn't add many details on the specific post you mentioned.
In general I've been thinking for many years that I know of too few books about places that are civilized but different, like China and Japan. I'm running a constant low-intensity search for books that explain Chinese and Japanese culture to outsiders, but I'm finding rather little. Maybe there are just as few books that explain Western culture to non-Westerners.
Presumably it was https://weibo.substack.com/ which reports on bride price issues on Chinese social media in a big fraction of posts. It's not clear if this obsession with bride price is a feature of Weibo or just an algorithmic quirk, where the profile used by Moly has become focused on this issue due to ongoing engagement with the topic.
Yes. That's the substack I was talking about. Moly's translations have been focused on topics relating to marriage and kids since the beginning so it's not surprising she covers bride price.