Abstract
Using data from a survey of cultural transmission of son preference in Lueyang county, this article reports on a quantitative comparative study on acceptance of two types of uxorilocal marriage in contemporary rural China: contingent, driven by household demographic factors, and institutional, driven by practical economic factors. It is shown that the contingent type is more likely to occur than the institutional, and the latter is transmissible within the household while the former is not. Conditions, motivations, and purposes of uxorilocal marriage differ between the two types, as do their determinants. The findings are important for understanding the changing family systems and marriage customs in contemporary rural China.
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