Surnaming

The conjunction in China of market reform and the one-child policy underlies new child-surnaming practices, discussed here for the first time. For a number of reasons, wives from daughter-only families are disrupting an established practice by giving their own surnames, rather than the husband’s, to their child(ren). Through development of the concept of “veiled patriarchy,” the chapter makes an original contribution to understanding child surnaming and inheritance practices in contemporary China. Veiled patriarchy relates to an obscuration of continuing patriarchal control, amid conditions of growing women’s rights. The chapter also addresses the emotional aspect of surnaming, which, incidentally, is the least researched element in this sparsely examined sociological topic. More generally, in demonstrating how surnaming is connected to intergenerational relations, gender contestation, and economic power asymmetry, the chapter realigns surnaming theory and the theory of gender through empirical investigation and conceptual innovation.