HEADSHIP SUCCESSION AND HOUSEHOLD DIVISION IN 3 CHINESE BANNER SERF POPULATIONS, 1789-1909

This article examines approximately 3,000 cases of household headship succession and 500 cases of household division in northeast China betw een 1789 and 1909 from three Chinese banner serf populations: Daoyi, D ami, and Gaizhou. We demonstrate that the combination of exclusionary headship and inclusionary membership household behaviour we described in Fare and fortune in rural China: social organization and population behavior in Liaoning, 1774-1873 in 1997 for the community of Daoyi wa s also common in two other banner populations, Dami and Gaizhou. This is of particular interest since our previous reconstruction of social organization in Daoyi had revealed a society dominated by multiple-fam ily households sharply stratified by generation, seniority within gene ration, and gender. The communities differed, however, in their headsh ip succession practices. In Daoyi virtually all household heads were m ale. In Dami and Gaizhou a significant proportion of them were female, even when eligible males were present in the household.