Taking the Unfilial Son to the Police: Family Conflicts and State Intervention in Republican Beijing

Abstract

This article, based upon 199 police reports of disobedience cases in Republican Beijing, examines the relationship between family and state in modern China. It argues that these cases, on the one hand, helped the family transfer the domestic crises to the state, and on the other hand, consolidated the state cult of filial piety and facilitated the everyday intervention of the state into society. But the collusion between family and state also led to some unexpected consequences, in which the state's representative institutions such as the police and the reformatory, with their availability and affordability, actually increased the visibility of filial impiety.