Page 170 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE FAMILY 157
frequently undermined by the proximity of colourful studio portraits of the living family,
or reproductions of oil paintings and calligraphy. Hierarchical spatial sequences are
further disrupted by the placement of asymmetrical living rooms off the central axis of the
house (Jing 1999). Containing sofas, console for television, VCR and karaoke, lifestyle
signifiers like exercise equipment and water-purifiers, aquariums, cabinets displaying
glassware, bottles of liquor and ornaments, these rooms are designed and furnished to
facilitate casual social interaction among the few members of each nuclear family unit
within the households, Upstairs, the concept of marriage as a romantic union is expressed
in the provision of designated parents’ suites that provide retreats from the eyes and ears
of other family members. Only one of the dozens of newly-weds’ bedrooms I have seen
contained a ‘traditional’ curtained wooden bed inherited from the couple’s forebears. All
others were store-bought fashion statements.
Women’s pursuit of their housing ideals not only alters village cultures and home life.
Spatially, women’s domestic roles are also being reconstituted. Along with other
productive activities, women’s contributions towards the household economy increasingly
tend to be carried out in segregated work spaces hidden from public view: in laundries,
sewing rooms and small kitchens that disallow social gatherings. I was told on many
occasions that one of the best features of new houses is the provision of ample cupboard
space and ground-floor garages that conceal the containers, chemicals, appliances and
equipment used in the home and courtyard. And, as Habermas (1989:43–51) observed of
the houses of the European bourgeoisie, the spatial structuration of privacy and
consumption in village mansions reduces the number of occasions when women can take
their ‘inside’ chores outside.
In the most affluent of the case-study villages, a woman who had a washing machine
blushed when she confessed that she still preferred to take her washing to the village
pond. When her husband scoffed, she excused herself by saying, ‘It saves water! And I like
to see what’s going on, who is walking past’ But while dirty, productive activities are
sequestered from the life of household and community, women’s maternal, nurturing and
pedagogic roles are newly privileged by the allocation of purpose-built spaces. For the
first time in rural domestic life, specific domains are being designated as nurseries,
children’s bedrooms, playrooms or ‘child’s study’. Mothers are acting as the tutors of the
future family. In short, appropriation of the built forms of modernity is reengendering the
domestic role of village women.

Conclusions
Old paradigms of marriage and household formation in China tended to overlook the will
and capacity of individual members of the family to exercise some control over their lives.
This tendency was particularly evident in studies of rural marriage and household
formation. And no individual members of the rural family have appeared less likely to take
control of their marriage and shape the size and structure of their household than young
women, so often depicted as the objects of marital exchange, vehicles for the
reproduction of patrilines or achievement of status aspirations, and victims of sexual
oppression and exploitation. Studies such as those by Margery Wolf (1972) added tone,