Intermarriage Spheres and Affinal Networks

chapter 1 Intermarriage Spheres and Affinal Networks

Part 1: Intermarriage Spheres: Social Change and the Expansion and Contraction of Intermarriage Regions

In Sun Village, “becoming a person” (getting married) and “setting up a place” (building a house) are the two great events of each villager’s lifetime, so they are known as “cosmic affairs” (做乾坤). While building a house depends entirely on one’s economic situation, the factors governing marriage are much more complex, including many cultural elements. I chose to research “intermarriage regions” as a window into the transformation of rural culture in a context of societal change.

The Rural Social Space of Sun Village Administrative and Geographic Space Sun Village is about thirty kilometers from the urban center of Putian, in a hilly part of the Pinghai Peninsula between two bays known colloquially as “the Front Sea” and “the Rear Sea.” The village is about two kilometers from the Front Sea (developed as a saltern since the late Qing Dynasty) and one kilome- ter from the Rear Sea (enclosed and built up for agriculture since the 1980s). To the east lie the Nine Hills and to the west the Seven Hills, each about one hundred meters above sea level, with two kilometers between them, the Rear Sea to the north and the Front Sea to the south. Sun Village is thus situated in a rather isolated geographical space of about six square kilometers surrounded by hills and sea. Moreover, “there are hills beyond hills,” with the Lufeng and Bijia ranges running further to the east and west, each about five hundred meters above sea level. Beyond Bijia lies the fertile Xinghua Plain (known as “Yangmian”), and to the east of Lufeng is the Taiwan Strait. It could thus be said that Sun Village’s six square kilometers are surrounded by a relatively independent geographic unit about fifty square kilometers in area. In Putian, the expression jiewai (界外), or “beyond the boundary,” is still popular today. The “boundary” originally referred to a wall built by the Qing Dynasty state along the coast of Putian in order to evacuate the population and ward off the fleet of Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong 郑成功 (also known as “Koxinga”). The evacuated coastal area outside the wall became known as Jiewai, which eventually became a derogatory term connoting isolation, igno- rance, and poverty. People from Putian’s urban center and the Xinghua Plain looked upon those from Jiewai with disdain, avoiding interaction.

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This expression was not limited to such subjective prejudices, however. The “boundary” lay to the east of the Bijia Hills, so it was also a border between the hilly region and the plains. Jiewai has long been characterized by a lack of arable land and fresh water relative to population size, most of the land being hilly and dry, suitable only for growing sweet potatoes as a staple crop. Drought years were thus especially rough. This also meant that the area lacked educa- tion, with an unusually low rate of graduates from the imperial examination system. Jiewai was thus both a relatively independent geographic unit as well a distinct cultural-economic region. Sun Village is currently governed by Wusheng Administrative Village of Dai- tou Township, but it actually borders the market towns of Dongjiao and Beigao rather than that of Daitou. Sun Village’s administrative status has changed re- peatedly since the Republican period. In 1935 (Year Twenty-Four of the Repub- lic), the baojia (保甲—“hundreds and tithings”) system was introduced, with Sun Village assigned to Longdong bao (including what are today three administrative villages in three different townships) under Nanmei xiang (乡), the latter’s headquarters located in Shanqian Village of today’s Beigao Township. From 1940 to 1949, Sun Village was re-assigned to Beizhu bao of Daitou Township, along with Wusheng and another administrative village. Briefly in 1949 Sun Vil- lage was placed under Beigao District, then from 1950 to 1951 it was returned to Beizhu (then designated as a xiang instead of a bao) under Daitou, the latter renamed as a “district” (qu 区). In 1952, Sun Village was transferred to Qianqin District until 1958, when it returned to Daitou, then renamed as a “commune” until 1982, when Daitou became a “township” (zhen 镇) and Wusheng Produc- tion Brigade became an “administrative village” presiding over Sun Village. The history of these administrative changes is illustrated in Table 1. Table 1 illustrates that, although Sun Village has changed administrative units several times over the past eighty years, the jurisdiction of its administrative authority has remained limited to the six square kilometers of relatively independent geographic space mentioned above. This means that its formal administrative network is largely based on the informal networks of rural society.

Ritual Spheres Locals refer to Sun Village’s temple as “the palace” (宫). Actually it has a formal name used only during ceremonies: “Yongjin Temple of Sun Ritual Territory, Hepu Sub-canton” (合浦里孙厝境永进社). This name probably derives from the Ming Dynasty system of sub-canton she temples (里社). In his study of deity-centered miao temples (神庙) on the Putian Plain, Zheng Zhenman wrote that, “After converting from sub-canton she to deity-centered miao, the temples usually kept their she names,” and “the area under a she-miao temple’s