Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 1, 2024

 

A Comparison of the Chinese and Western Systems of the Inheritance of Family Property from the Fourteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries

(Abstract)

 

Long Denggao, Zhao Liang and Chen Yueyuan

 

The difference between the system of equal shares for all sons (partible inheritance), which was prevalent in Ming and Qing China, and primogeniture, which was more common in Western Europe during the same period, stems from the difference in the characteristics of land ownership and economic agents between China and the West. The multi-layered property rights to land and diversified forms of transaction in the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as the strong vitality of individual family holdings, became the institutional guarantee for the operation and long-term continuation of the division of the family and partition of property. The status and holistic nature of the property rights of the Western European manor rendered the inheritance of property and status inseparable; the management and self-contained mode of production and life of combined agricultural and pastoral holdings made the manor more holistic, so that the eldest son’s inheritance became a logical and adaptable institutional choice. Their systems of family inheritance had an impact on both Chinese and Western economic modes and developmental directions. Western European primogeniture did not have institutional advantages in itself, but indirectly gave rise to new heterogeneous factors outside the original system. These led to institutional change, resulting in the decline of primogeniture. In China, the system of equal shares for all sons and individual family holdings reinforced each other, maintaining the stability of traditional society while at the same time inhibiting change.