Lineage Society on the Southeastern Coast of China: The Impact o ...

in his study of the lineages in Huizhou until the late sixteenth century, Keith Hazelton suggested an alternative formulation that he termed the “Yangzi delta lineage.”¹³ Although it indicates the holding of corporate estates and the provision of charitable support to widows and orphans, as in Freedman’s model, the evidence discussed by Hazelton suggests that, in fact, the real wealth of the lineages in Huizhou was held by individual families or smaller agnatic groups within the larger entity—in contrast to the corporate ownership in Freedman’s model.¹⁴ Furthermore, the evolutionary nature of the Chinese lineage is implicit in David Faure’s argument that the prominence of “the lineage as a form of village organization” and as a cultural invention in the Pearl River delta was the result of a long process of Ming and Qing efforts between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries to integrate outlying regions into the body politic.¹⁵

The vast geographical expanse of China also plays a role in the exceptions to Freedman’s model that have been found. For instance, Myron Cohen’s study of the Yangmansa lineages of northern China notes that the “fixed genealogical orientation” he observed in fact provided agnatic kin with a form of interaction unencumbered by socioeconomic and political differences. This seems to contradict the arguments of Freedman and other anthropologists regarding the differentiation of property, wealth, social standing, and political status as crucial to the organization of relationships within the lineage.¹⁶ Emily Ahern pointed out, too, that in contrast to Freedman’s argument that segmentation takes place only when differentiated groups of agnates establish separate landed estates or ancestral halls, segmentation in some cases also takes place by means of a simple change in residence, that is, through a relocation that moves some members away from the rest of the corporate body and that does not necessarily involve property or a new focus of worship.¹⁷

Freedman’s ideas and model became more refined by the works of other scholars and his influence extended to Chinese scholars as well. Studies were carried out in China to show how the lineage institution, as an instrument of political and social control, mediated the relationship between local society and the state in late imperial China.¹⁸ Consensus among Chinese scholars is that the lineage institution became