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

more popularly accepted during the Ming dynasty and that this shift can be largely attributed to the 1536 change in ritual law—though scholarly opinions differ regarding the impact of that law. With respect to the development of lineage society, Zheng Zhenman’s study of social change in Fujian during the Ming and Qing dynasties is instructive. In his analysis, Zheng identified three basic types of lineage organization on the Fujian coast that appeared in late imperial China: the inheritance lineage based on consanguineous ties, the control-subordination lineage based on territorial ties, and the contractual lineage based on common interests. These typologies are all variations of Freedman’s paradigm that developed out of local alliances.¹⁹ Zheng’s discussion of how the rise of local autonomy and the formation of corporate lineage property allowed the lineages to become brokers between the state and local society resonates in part with Freedman’s thesis.

In the present study of the lineage organization in Haining, much attention is focused on the how and why of lineage creation—that is, on the reasons groups chose to identify themselves as agnatic and on the process by which they did so. I suggest that the wokou crisis of the 1550s and 1560s was a precipitating factor in the formation of lineage society in Haining, and I examine the response of the people to the wokou raids.

However, this study also shows that the lineages in Haining contained elements of Freedman’s model. Lineage members compiled genealogies, constructed ancestral temples, established corporate estates, and were even involved in inter- and intralineage disputes over properties and burial grounds, all in the name of their ancestor and lineage. Yet, to some extent, the Haining lineages correspond to Hazelton’s alternative formulation of the “Yangzi delta lineage”: some of the estates established were dedicated to the succor of very distinct branches of agnates within the larger lineage. The fact that most of the lineage leadership was apparently centralized in the hands of the educated or degree-holding members, furthermore, suggests congruity between the local society in Haining and the exercise of political, social, and cultural leadership by local elites; this phenomenon has already been examined in other studies of local histories.²⁰ What makes the lineage organizations in