Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 July 18

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July 18

Wang Family Compound and cousin marriage

I am curious how a family compound can grow so large to the grand scale of 300 residence courtyards and 3,000 rooms even if 4 generations of a family live there. Does that mean extensive level of cousin marriage was practiced? I can't find any information on cousin marriage and the Wang Family Compound but from a generic anthropological approach does the large size of the clan in one site suggest a high level of inbreeding? Muzzleflash (talk) 20:56, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I would assume that many who lived in the compound were retainers and servants, ie not blood relations to the Wangs, but part of their broader “family” or household. Blueboar (talk) 21:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

It's possible that the article is misnamed; I'm finding sources that refer to the Wangs as a clan - that is, a far bigger group than the single family you might be envisioning, and with looser geneological ties. See also Chinese clan, [1] and [2]. 70.67.222.124 (talk) 21:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm seeing quite a lot of source which give it it that name. It's possible some of them have been influenced by us, but I doubt they all have. So I'm doubtful the name is wrong by wikipedia standards. Even by more general standards, the name in Chinese 王家大院 is given as. The relevant part seems to be wiktionary:家. I think the last 2 basically mean courtyard wiktionary:大院, and the first is the surname wiktionary:王. Or see wiktionary:王家, I think the part 'other than a set phrase' is what's relevant. Someone familiar with Chinese could comment further, but I suspect the Wang family compoung is a reasonable translation for the Chinese name. There's probably at least some element of the difficulties translating names across significant cultural and language barriers given the lack of perfect conjugates and different understandings of various constructs depending on contexts. In other words, while the OP's understanding of what family means here may be wrong since they aren't sufficiently familiar with Chinese traditions and cultural norms (and they also mentioned clan anyway), and in various contexts clan may be a more common translation for the grouping mentioned, 'family' isn't intrisicly wrong. See also these sources [3] [4] which may give some understanding of why these things can be complicated. Nil Einne (talk) 11:03, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

BTW, if you're really interested and can understand Chinese, you may be able to dig up a genealogy. I'm sure one existed at one stage, and it seems a wider Wang genealogy was published in the 19th century [5]. I don't know for sure that this branch is on it, but I suspect it would be given their apparent success. Nil Einne (talk) 11:30, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

That's super interesting, thanks Nil Einne. I don't read Chinese at all. Do you think this is the geneology: [6] 70.67.222.124 (talk) 16:23, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

No, the timeframe is off since the one referred to in the paper must have been published in the 19th or 20th century based on what the paper says but that is from the 16th century. Also the one in the paper is said to be 105 volumes. But that one is only 4. The time frame suggests even if that one does cover the family/clan that was in the compound, it was before the compound really reached the size that we know now. The description is unclear, but I suspect that genealogy only really covers a clan/family in one specific area, which may not include those were the compound is. Nil Einne (talk) 17:05, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

The compound housed a very extended family and their servants. 家 can be translated as either family or clan; I think that clan gives a better sense of scale. Due to exponential growth, a few generations of descendants can easily amount to hundreds of people--and note that this compound has hundreds of years of history. For the contemporaneous Qiao Family Compound, which is ten times smaller, China Daily reports that "more than 170 servants worked in the dwellings". C0617470r (talk) 10:19, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

References

Muzzleflash -- traditionally, people with the same Chinese surname were not supposed to marry, which suggests that patrilineal cousin marriage was not approved of. Marriage with a non-patrilineal cousin would not have been considered in-marriage... AnonMoos (talk) 23:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to the question, but I'm curious about one of the suppositions. If a family heavily used cousin marriage, surely they would need fewer rooms, not more. In a normal exogamous family, there's going to be a set of in-laws for every marriage, but that won't be the case in cousin marriage - the parents of the spouse would already be in the family. Matt Deres (talk) 11:46, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Traditionally same surname clans lived together in villages in some rural parts of China. They marry outside of their surnames either with a woman from a neighboring village or yes maternal cousins. I think the compound was just a clan village in a prettier veneer. Clan villages would usually led by the eldest male of the eldest male line. As for the woman. Any women from the Wang clan would marry into their husband’s clans and leave their father’s house, they would not have lived in the compound unless their husbands married into (ruzhui 入赘) their wives family. KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:01, 19 July 2018 (UTC)