Living under the Same Roof: A Genealogy of the Family Romance between Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law in Modern Chinese Hi/story

This article aims to contribute to current feminist studies of differences among women by examining the age and generational difference between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, an issue especially prominent in a patriarchal, patrilineal and patrilocal- exogamous culture such as China, but which has received little attention from Western feminist scholars. It focuses on the changing power relations between mother-inlaw and daughter-in-law as represented in three literary texts written by men from three historical periods: late-imperial China, the early socialist era and contemporary China. It argues that due to changing historical forces that always favour some women over others in line with their age, generation, class and other multiaxial differences, the traditional pattern of mother-in-law dominating daughter-in-law in the Confucian narratives of late-imperial China has been gradually reversed. Although this means that younger women are empowered, older women are nonetheless disadvantaged. Thus gender stratification in the polity and economy has persisted in modern Chinese culture.