Visiting Marriage”—

THE REVIVAL OF “VISITING MARRIAGE”— FAMILY CHANGE AND INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONS AMONG MATRILINEAL TIBETANS IN SOUTHWESTERN CHINA by YUNZHU CHEN Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY January, 2019 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the dissertation of Yunzhu Chen candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy*. Committee Chair Melvyn Goldstein Committee Member Lihong Shi Committee Member Vanessa Hildebrand Committee Member Peter Yang Date of Defense June 11th, 2018 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. To My Parents i ` Table of Contents List of Tables........................................................................................................ III List of Figures ...................................................................................................... V Acknowledgements ............................................................................................. VI List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................... VIII Abstract ............................................................................................................... IX Chapter 1 Introduction: The Changing Family and Aging China ........................... 1 Chapter 2 Village Background and the “Visiting Marriage” Tradition................... 31 Chapter 3 “To Be the Father or the Uncle”: “Visiting Marriage” Reconsidered .... 82 Chapter 4 “To Leave Or To Stay”: Household Division and Intergenerational Negotiations ...................................................................................................... 106 Chapter 5 Growing Old in A Changing Era: Lives of the Elderly ....................... 143 Chapter 6 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 187 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 195 ii List of Tables Table 2-1. Number of Generation within the Households, 2015 ......................... 52 Table 2-2. Household Size, 2015 ........................................................................ 53 Table 2-3. Detailed Household Headship of the Households .............................. 55 Table 2-4. Percentage of Household by the Number of Wage Laborers, 2015-16 ............................................................................................................................ 58 Table 2-5. Wage Laborers by Job Category, 2015-16 ........................................ 58 Table 2-6. Demographic Distribution of Caterpillar Fungus Collectors in 2016 ... 62 Table 2-7. Sources of Income per Household 2015-16 ....................................... 65 Table 2-8. Marital Status of Males and Females Age 20 and older in 2015 ........ 70 Table 3-1. Marital Status by Gender and Age Group, 2015 ................................ 83 Table 3-2. Marital Status by Generation ............................................................. 84 Table 3-3. Mean Number of Surviving Births to Women by Age Group, 2015 .... 89 Table 4-1. Family Structure in 1980 and 2015 .................................................. 109 Table 4-2 Eight Cases of Household Division since 1980 ................................. 110 Table 4-3 Cases of Out-migration ..................................................................... 118 Table 4-4. Living Arrangements of the Middle-Aged Persons ........................... 137 Table 5-1 Activities of Daily Living among the Elderly Villagers ........................ 144 iii Table 5-2. List of Major Activities by the Elderly 2015-16 ................................. 147 Table 5-3 Household Status of the Elderly Villagers ......................................... 151 Table 5-4 Marital Status by Age and Gender among the Elderly Villagers ....... 152 Table 5-5. Living Arrangements of the Elderly Villagers ................................... 155 Table 5-6. Health Resources Utilized by the Elderly Villagers 2015-16 ............ 160 iv List of Figures Figure 2-1 Administrative Structure in Zhaba During the Traditional Era……………………………………………………………………………………….40 Figure 3-1. Percentage of People Who Practice “Visiting Marriage” by Age Group……………………………………………………………………………………84 v AcknoWledgements It has been a long journey. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my advisor— Melvyn Goldstein, who has been an amazing mentor over my years in the United States. He spared no effort in helping me at every single stage of my project: guided me with his wisdom when I was contemplating my research questions, equipped me with his abundant experience of doing research in Tibet, and always cheered me up with his witty sense of humor. I am extremely fortunate to learn from him. I am grateful to my committee members: I thank Lihong Shi for her academic insights, numerous constructional comments, and continuous encouragement; I thank Vanessa Hildebrand for motivating me with her passion and supporting me throughout my years in the program; I thank Peter Yang for being on my committee and giving me insightful advice on the dissertation from a different perspective. I thank the Department of Anthropology at CWRU, the Eva L. Pancoast Memorial Fellowship, and Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities for providing financial support for this research project. I sincerely thank Cynthia Beall for giving me advice and support in my career development. I thank Janet McGrath for her efforts in sharpening my vi critical thinking and academic writing skills. And I thank Eileen Anderson-fye for giving me the opportunity to do research in Nepal after my first year in the program. I thank Chunxia Li and Jun Xu at my alma mater Sichuan University for getting me intrigued by the subject of anthropology in the first place. I am thankful to Bo Chen at Sichuan University for introducing the field site and key informants and helping me better navigate the Zhaba Tibetan Culture. I am forever grateful to the Zhabawa. I express my sincere thanks to all the participants of this project in Zhaba, who trusted me as a researcher, took me in their lives, cared for me in the villages, and taught me compassion and love. I thank my dearest friend Xin Niu and Cindy Zhou for their friendship and support since college. I express my gratitude for the friendship and support provided by friends and colleagues at CWRU. Jing Wang, Yan Zhang, Smaranda Ene, Frank Manzella, Kate Allen, Ariel Cascio, Junjie Zhao, Yangqi Yue, Yuhan Wang, Lingxin Xie, Stephanie McClure, Cecilia Li and Cherry Bharati, thank them for accompanying me through the long winters of Cleveland. I am grateful to my husband Feng Li for always being there for me— journeys begin in our meeting. Finally, I cannot thank my family enough for their unconditional love and surprisingly open minds to support their singleton daughter. I could not have done this without them. vii List of Abbreviations HH Household VM Visiting Marriage c. Chinese z. Zhaba term CCP Chinese Communist Party TAR Tibet Autonomous Region viii The Revival of “Visiting Marriage”— Family Change and Intergenerational Relations among Matrilineal Tibetans In Southwestern China Abstract by YUNZHU CHEN This dissertation examines how a matrilineal Tibetan society has reacted to the political, economic, and socio-cultural changes in China. The Zhaba region of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province was chosen as the overall field site because of its matrilineal kinship system and “visiting marriage” tradition, in which partners live in their natal matrilineal households while children belong to the mothers’ family. Based on eleven months of anthropological fieldwork, this dissertation is the first ethnography on marriage, family, and intergenerational relations among matrilineal Tibetans in Southwestern China. This dissertation discusses how the changing ideals of marriage and family formations influence people of different generations. A major argument of this dissertation is that the interplay of state policies including birth planning ix policy, household registration policy, marriage certification rules, and socio- economic developments over the past few decades, have contributed to changes in the “visiting marriage” tradition and family ideals among the matrilineal Zhaba Tibetans. This has led to the sense of exclusiveness between the visiting partners, an increase of the father’s contribution in childrearing, and the emergence of neolocal nuclear families. However, this dissertation shows that there has been a revival of the traditional “visiting marriage” among the majority of young people in their twenties (63.64%) who still chose to practice “visiting marriage” and live with their natal matrilineal households. Using ethnographic data, this dissertation brings to the forefront how a matrilineal society in the cultural context of China, structures the life course of different generations and affects the well-being of the elderly. Moreover, this in- depth, on-the-ground ethnography of Tibetans residing in Sichuan province, demonstrates the diverse manner that ethnic Tibetans are adapting to change and development in China. By comparing family changes between the Zhaba Tibetans and both rural Han Chinese families and Tibetan families in the literature, it reveals how the locals reacted differently to the same set of political,

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