7 - Strategies of heirship

Summary

The prologue to the great Chinese autobiographical novel of the eighteenth century, Dream of the Red Chamber, contains the following passage, in which the author sets the scene for his story:

Chen Shih-Ying was without aspirations to fame or fortune. He devoted his time to planting bamboo and watering flowers and sipping wine and writing poems. He led an idyllic life. Unfortunately he lacked one thing to complete his happiness: he was over half a hundred years of age and had no son. Only a three-year-old daughter named Lotus filled his bosom

(Ts'ao, 1958,9).

The situation confronting Chen Shih-Ying is one that is consciously faced by men and women in all human groups. But it is one whose resolution differs depending upon the alternatives available in particular societies and upon the position in the life-cycle in which an individual stands. In this chapter I want to lay out the possible mechanisms from which societies can select to deal with the problem of heirship, especially as it concerns the absence of sons, the substitutability of daughters and the excess of heirs. Though the situation covers more than the ownership and transmission of property, I shall be mainly concerned with this material aspect of heirship, especially as we have seen that the transfer of productive resources is connected with differences in the systems of social roles found in the major African and Eurasian societies.