AHR Forum
Fraternity and Fratricide in Late Imperial China
ADRIAN DAVIS
OF ALL RELATIONS BETWEEN MEN in late imperial China, the bond between brothers
was the most important and the most celebrated. In addition, the fraternal bond was
the implicit model for all other types of male homo social relations, such as the
friends discussed in Norman Kutcher's article and the sworn blood brothers
examined by Lee McIsaac in this Forum. Fraternal relations were at the core of the
highly articulated and state-sponsored conceptualization of kinship relations.
Confucian thinkers linked the idea of ti (loving fraternity) to that of xiao (filial
piety), meaning that younger brothers were supposed to display the same obedience
to ulder brothers as they showed to their [ather or sovereign. Thus the Song dynasty
writer Yuan Cai argued that "the relationship of a son to his father or a younger
brother to his elder brother is like that of a soldier to his officer, a clerk to the
official above him, or a bondservant to his master: that is, they may not consider
themselves peers who may dispute points whenever they please."l While Yuan also
encouraged parents and older brothers to handle their power responsibly, he
insisted that children and younger brothers should accept even unjust demands: "if
a senior's words or actions are unmistakably remiss, all that the junior may do is
voice some suggestions in a tactful way. If the senior compounds his mistakes hy
offering twisted excuses, the junior should listen even more submissively and not
argue with him."2 Similarly, the great Song thinker Sima Guang, in his Jia Fan
(Family Rules), argued that, even in "cases where the deference and submission of
the junior was not matched by fairness and kindness from the senior," there should
The research for this article was made possible by a grant from the Committee on Scholarly
Communications with the People's Republic of China, as well as a faculty research grant from Franklin
& Marshall College. An earlier version was delivered at the annual meeting of the American Historical
Association in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 5, 1996. I would like to thank my co-participants on the
panel, Norman Kutcher and Lee McIsaac, and the commentators, Susan Mann and Gail Hershatter, as
well as members of the audience, for their insightful comments. An even earlier version formed a
chapter of my dissertation; I would like to acknowledge my adviser, Philip A. Kuhn, for his many useful
comments. Abby Schrader, Maria Mitchell, David Schuyler, Jonathan Karp, Ted Pearson, Kathy
Brown, Renee Sentilles, Carla Willard, and Tim Roseborough also provided me with criticisms and
suggestions. I have also benefited from the comments of the AHR's editors and anonymous reviewers.
None of the above are responsible for any errors that this article might contain.
1 Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Family and Property in Sung China: Yuan Ts'ai's Precepts for Social Ufe
(Princeton, N.J., 1984), 185.
2 Ebrey, Family and Property, 185.
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Fraternity and Fratricide in Late Imperial China
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be "greater submission to the point of extreme self-abnegation," for "in these cases
one had a special opportunity to display one's filial piety or fraternal submission."3
This dominant model of hierarchical fraternal relations exercised great influence
in late imperial Chinese society. The late imperial Chinese state promoted and
defended it (along with other aspects of the family system) through its laws. Yet the
influence of a hierarchical conception of fraternity, of which these laws are but one,
albeit major, example, should not blind us to the fact that there were other
conceptions of fraternal relations operating in late imperial China. Above all, the
fraternal bond was complicated by the general rule that brothers had an equal claim
to the assets of their family. This contradiction between status inequality and
economic equality has led many anthropologists to identify fraternal relations as, in
Arthur Wolf's words, "a structural weakness at the very center of the Chinese
kinship system."4 Wolf pointed out that the mourning clothes worn when a brother
died indicated that the "seniority enjoyed by an older brother" is "slight" and that
"the relationship is essentially one of equality."5 Maurice Freedman argued that the
"fraternal relationship was one of competition, and potentially of a fierce kind"6
over "scarce resources," and was "one of the most fragile bonds in Chinese society,
Confucian moralizing notwithstanding."7 Myron Cohen's work expanded on this
theme, stating that "all Chincsc families were under a constant tension produced by
the conflict between unifying forces and those making for fragmentation" and that
the "major divisive force [in the family] was generated precisely by the equal rights
to the chia Uia] estate held by the brothers."8
The dual nature of the way fraternity was constructed in late imperial China-its
inclusion of hierarchical and equal elements-made a certain amount of tension
between brothers virtually inevitable. This article will examine one extreme
expression of tension, cases of fratricide, to uncover both the specific issues that led
to conflict among brothers as well as the concepts of fraternity that were expressed
by individuals. Fratricide cases demonstrate that the hierarchical model of fraternity was not the only conceptual formulation of fraternal relations circulating in late
imperial Chinese society. At first glance, nothing might seem further removed from
"fraternity" than "fratricide"; however, fratricide cases allow us to examine both
fraternal relations and the competing meanings and definitions of fraternity. While
hardly designed for this purpose, the investigation and trial of the murder of
brothers provided a context in which men articulated their understanding of the
fraternal relationship. These cases thus reveal the multiple meanings assigned
fraternity within late imperial society.
Although the extreme violence that marked these instances of fraternal conflict
was clearly unusual, the issues that prompted them were far from uncommon. The
cases most often arose out of disputes over the division of property, clashes over the
support and treatment of parents, and concerns over how a brother's behavior
Ebrey, Family and Property, 33.
Arthur P. Wolf, "Chinese Kinship and Mourning Dress," in Maurice Freedman, ed., Family and
Kinship in Chinese Society (Stanford, Calif., 1970), 206.
5 Wolf, "Chinese Kinship and Mourning Dress," 198, 199.
6 Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society.' Fukien and Kwangtung (London, 1971),46.
7 Maurice Freedman, "Introduction," in Freedman, Family and Kinship in Chinese Society, 3-4.
H Myron Cohen, House United, House Divided: The Chinese Family in Taiwan (Ncw York, 1976),73.
3
4
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might affect the reputation of the family. Underneath each of these conflicts,
however, was also a difference of opinion over the definition of fraternity; often,
brothers fought not only over specific issues but also because they saw the fraternal
bond differently. Some were threatened by the rejection of a hierarchical relationship between older and younger brother. Others identified the salient threat to the
fraternal relationship as the misuse of hierarchical authority to obtain personal
advantage; still others grew angry over a brother's persistent refusal to conform to
other norms of social behavior (especially filial piety and adherence to the law),
which weakened the social status of all members of their family. The language,
explanations, and descriptions found in the testimonies of these murderous
brothers thus tell us more than the immediate cause of their conflict. They also give
us an indication of the diversity of ways in which "fraternity" was defined in late
imperial China. Both younger and older brothers acknowledged the widely
promoted and culturally dominant model of hierarchical fraternity. Yet they also
invoked other principles, which modified or undermined that model. Some spoke of
a collective conception of fraternity, while others stressed the individual interests
and separate identities of brothers.
THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES CLOSELY three fratricide cases that were tried during the
Yongzheng (1723-1736) and Qianlong (1736-1796) reigns of the Qing dynasty
(1644-1911). The details of these cases are very similar to many other cases of
fratricide I have examined as part of a larger study of intra-familial homicide in
eighteenth-century China. 9 While it is obviously impossible to make broad generalizations about fraternal relations in late imperial China from such a small number
of cases, I argue that these instances of fraternal conflict contain important clues
about the contested nature of fraternity in Qing China. Given the paucity of other
materials that reveal the quotidian details of family life during this period, I believe
that, notwithstanding the problematic nature of legal documents, these cases serve
as a useful counterpoint to the more widely disseminated and promoted discourse
that celebrated hierarchical fraternity.
Qing law both singled out intra-familial crime and encouraged the production of
voluminous records of homicide. The Qing code adjusted punishments for crimes
such as cursing, assault, and murder if a familial relationship existed between the
perpetrator and the victim; junior or younger relatives were given especially severe
punishments for harming their senior or older relatives. Thus younger brothers
(and sisters) who struck, injured, or killed their older siblings were punished far
more severely than older brothers and sisters who assaulted or murdered their
9 This analysis of fratricide is part of a larger study on intra-familial homicide. See Adrian Davis,
"Homicide in the Home: Marital Strife and Familial Conflict in Eighteenth-Century China" (PhD
dissertation, Harvard University, 1995), 147-1l1, chap. 5. Cases are drawn either from memorials
(xingke tiben) in the collection of the First Historical Archives in Beijing, or included in Zhang Weiren,
ed., Mingqing Dangan (Taibei, 1987), a multi-volume compilation of Qing documents. Archival cascs all
date from the following years in the Qianlong emperor's reign-the first year (1736-37), tenth
(1745-46), twentieth (1755-56), thirtieth (1765-66), thirty-fifth (1770-71), fortieth (1775-76), or
fiftieth (1785-86). In referring to an archival document in the notes, I list the archival catalog listings
under which a memorial can be found, as well as the date and author of the document.
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younger siblings. 1O The discrepancy in punishment between siblings was starkest in
cases of murder. Killing an older sibling was punished with beheading or, when it
was premeditated, with death by slicing;11 by contrast, older brothers and sisters
who killed a younger sibling were usually sentenced to penal servitude or
banishment.l 2 Not only Qing codified law but also the jurisprudence developed over
the course of the dynasty stressed the intense importance of distinguishing between
older and younger brothers in determining punishment. This is especially evident in
the casebooks that Qing magistrates relied on for dealing with complex situations. 13
These collections clearly demonstrate that Qing courts were usually unwilling to
reduce the sentence of a younger brother convicted of murder. 14 Only in cases
where there was no intention of doing harm or when the younger brother acted
completely in self-defense did judges show some flexibility.ls Nor were judges
usually willing to allow a younger brother guilty of murdering his older sibling to be
eligible for liuyang, the procedure by which a person was exempted from punishment because he was the only one available to take care of his elderly parents.
Other provisions in the Qing dynasty legal code regarding homicide generated an
immense documentary record of murder. All homicide cases had to be reviewed by
each level of the Qing bureaucracy; all executions had to be approved by the
emperor. 16 For each homicide case, a routine memorial of the Qing Board of
Punishments (xingke tiben) was produced. These memorials essentially consist of a
series of reports issued by increasingly important officials-first by the county
magistrate who originally dealt with the murder, then by officials at the prefectural
and provincial level who reviewed the magistrate's actions and verdict, and finally
by the Board of Punishments in Beijing. These are extremely rich documents. They
contain, for example, a record of the original report of the homicide, an autopsy
report, and an account of the investigative process carried out by the county
magistrate. Most important, they include long, detailed testimonies given by the
\0 Younger brothers and sisters who hit their older siblings were punished with ninety blows of the
heavy bamboo and two-and-a-half years of penal servitude; if they injured them, this punishment was
increased. If the injury was caused with a knife, or if the injury had resulted in the breaking of a limb
or the blinding of an eye, they were sentenced to strangulation. Daqing Luli Huitong Xinzuan (Taibei,
1964), 4: 2795.
11 Daqing Luli Huitong Xinzuan, 4: 2795.
12 Older brothers and sisters were punished only when they killed a younger sibling; they were given
one hundred blows of the heavy bamboo and three years' penal servitude if the killing had not been
intentional, and banishment to a place 2,000 Ii (a unit of measurement equivalent to about a third of
a mile) away if the killing had been deliberate. Daqing Luli Huitong Xinzuan, 4: 2796. However, if the
purposc of an intcntional killing of a youngcr sibling was to obtain propcrty or officc, or, if as a
consequence of a long-term feud or conflict, the older sibling intentionally took a weapon and killed
the younger sibling, then the punishment was strangulation. Daqing Luli Huitong Xinzuan, 4: 279R.
n Most Qing magistrates had little formal legal training or detailed knowledge of the law. Often, they
relied on legal secretaries (always male) for advice. See Wejen Chang, "Legal Education in Ch'ing
China," in Benjamin A. Elman and Alexander Woodside, eds., Education and Society in Late Imperial
China (Berkeley, Calif., 1994).
14 See the case of Chen Chaosui in Xingan Huilan (Taibei, 1968), 10: 4455.
15 See the case of Zhou Yongtai in Xingan Huilan, 10: 4468.
16 For a fuller treatment of Qing legal procedure, see Zhang Weiren, Qingdai Fazhi Yanjiu (Taibei,
1983); Shiga Shuzo, "Criminal Procedure in the Ch'ing Dynasty-with Emphasis on Its Administrative
Character and Some Allusion to Its Historical Antecedents (I)," Memoirs of the Research Department
of the Toyo Bunko 32 (1974): 1-46; Shiga Shuzo, "Criminal Procedure in the Ch'ing Dynasty-with
Emphasis on Its Administrative Character and Some Allusion to Its Historical Antecedents (II),"
Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975): 115-38.
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witnesses, village leaders, and relatives of the victim, and confessions by the
murderer.
The use of these legal records is obviously problematic, especially with regard to
their representativeness and accuracy. To begin with, the cases document only those
murders that came to the attention of the authorities; many people sought to avoid
reporting crimes and instead settled them privately. Also, magistrates and other
judicial officials had a great capacity to affect the nature of the record, since the
Qing legal system authorized the use of certain forms of torture to extract
testimony. In addition, there were many factors that would encourage defendants
and witnesses to alter their statements, adjust their account of their actions, or
structure in a particular way the "facts" they were recounting. Defendants hoped to
minimize evidence of their guilt; witnesses and others giving testimony sought to
avoid being entrapped or revealing their own involvement in criminal activity. No
doubt, then, in some of these cases, defendants distorted evidence, witnesses
falsified testimonies, and magistrates handed down unfair verdicts.17
However, countervailing factors minimized or reduced the effects of nonreporting, judicial manipulation, and misrepresentation and concealment in testimonies. Homicide was almost certainly reported more consistently than other
crimes, for concealing a murder was punished severely, especially if the victim was
a close relative. I8 The initial investigation and trial of a case of homicide, carried
out by the county magistrate, was always followed by a full retrial of the murder at
the prefectural level. Since the verdict was then reviewed at all levels of the
government hierarchy before sentence was carried out, magistrates had to be
careful to avoid outright deception and manipulation of evidence, which might be
discovered at these higher levels. While defendants and witnesses may have tried to
deceive the magistrate, false testimony by witnesses was harshly punished, and it is
clear from the cases that magistrates made great efforts to compare testimonies in
order to uncover lies and resolve discrepancies.
Moreover, as scholars working on legal records from other areas of the world
have shown, testimonies can also be revealing even when they do not represent an
absolutely accurate account of events, for the ways in which criminals attempt to
explain and sometimes justify their behavior can be as significant as the behavior
itself. Falsehoods can be useful evidence; as Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero
note, "lies can often tell more about the past than apparent truths ... [N]ot just any
lie will do in testifying about a crime. Usually lies must have the ring of
credibility."19 Natalie Zemon Davis has shown that the "pardon tales" written by
sixteenth-century French men and women accused of crimes contain clues about
the cultural framework within which these requests were produced/o Similarly, in
his study of crime in colonial Mexico, William Taylor notes that the motives and
explanations expressed in testimonies, even if not true, "give us clues to folk
17 See Susan Naquin, "True Confessions: Criminal Interrogations as Sources for Ch'ing History,"
National Palace Museum Bulletin 11 (March-April 197ti), for another discussion of these issues.
lH William C. Jones, trans., The Great Qing Code (Oxford, 1994), 283.
19 Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, "Afterword: Crime and the Writing of History," in Muir and
Ruggiero, eds., IIistory from Crime (Baltimore, 1994), 230.
20 Natalie Zeman Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century
France (Stanford, Calif., 1987).
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explanations and norms" and let us know "how the people interpreted their
situations and what was considered proper or expected social behavior in different
circumstances. "21
CASES OF FRATRICIDE illustrate Taylor's point, for they expose the ways in which men
in late imperial China interpreted the concept of fraternity. This interpretation was
highly varied and complex; indeed, even promoters of the Confucian ideal of
fraternity, such as Yuan Cai, acknowledged that "sometimes they [brothers] are not
harmonious," and "with brothers it is often the result of disputes over property."22
The fratricide cases bear this out, for among the most common sources of tension
between brothers was the division of jointly held family property-both how the
land and other assets should be split and who had the authority to supervise the
division. One example is the case of Xie Biao, a Sichuanese peasant who killed his
older brother, Xie Kui, during a fight over ownership of a piece of land. 23 Xie Kui
had managed his and his siblings' land after their father died. Because of his
incompetence and extravagance, he had soon lost the bulk of their property.
Fearing even further losses, his two younger brothers, Xie Jian and Xie Biao, asked
their older sister to supervise an equitable division of their estate; she was able to
persuade all three brothers to agree to a split. Xie Kui and Xie Biao each received
slightly more land than Xie Jian because their families were larger.
Xie Kui, however, fared no better on his own, and had soon sold off all the land
he had received. He then began to covet a portion of the land that Xie Biao had
been given. On October 28, 1738, as Xie Biao was plowing this very land, Xie Kui
confronted him and demanded to be allowed to cultivate the land himself. They
argued for a while and then separated; later that day, however, Xie Kui went to Xie
Biao's house to pursue the argument. In the course of the ensuing fight, Xie Biao
killed his older brother by striking him on the head with a rock. Terrified that his
crime might be discovered, Xie Biao hid his brother's corpse in a nearby grove.
When Xie Biao's wife came home, he made her help him move Xie Kui's body to
a more secure hiding place: a cave in a nearby hill, whose entrance Xie Biao blocked
up. However, his attempt at concealment failed; his sister became suspicious about
her older brother's disappearance, especially when she saw some bloodstained
stones around Xie Biao's house. She relayed her suspicions to the village leader Ao
Fenghe, who then interrogated Xie Jian and Xie Biao. Xie Biao confessed to his
crime; he was later sentenced to beheading.
This case is one of many in which fraternal conflicts over land or other property
were intensified when older brothers like Xie Kui presumed on their elevated status
and position to demand a greater share of the family estate, or to insist on a
renegotiation of the division of that estate. Clearly, younger brothers sharplyindeed, violently-resented and rcjcctcd attempts by their older brothers to obtain
economic advantage. Just as clearly, however, the evidence in the cases also shows
21 William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford, Calif.,
1979), 91.
22 Ebrey, Family and Property, 181.
23 Zhang, Mingqing dangan, 93: 52561-77.
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that older brothers often felt that their status did entitle them to demand a greater
share of the estate or to a larger role in deciding how it would be divided. Thus
conflict over land and property also involved a dispute over the extent as well as the
economic significance of the power balance within the fraternal relationship.
Younger brothers tended to resist the extension of the hierarchical nature of
fraternity into the realm of property rights, while older brothers at times presumed
on their seniority to justify their demand for a greater portion of the familial estate.
THE ABOVE CASE involved brothers fighting over their individual interests. In other
instances, the brother's relationship to the family-particularly a perceived lack of
filial piety or economic support of parents-was the reason for tension. Settlements
of property division in late imperial China often involved provisions for thc
maintenance of parents, either by setting aside the income from some land for this
purpose or by rotating the responsibility for support of parents. Neglecting or
avoiding this responsibility challenged norms of filial piety, a key value in late
imperial China. Even when property was not at stake, violation of filial piety-by
yelling or cursing at parents, refusing to obey their demands, or generally behaving
"improperly"-was a volatile issue for brothers. In some cases, parents would be
actively involved in these disputes, either participating in the fight or demanding
that one of their sons punish the one they saw as "disobedient."
Unfilial behavior was, for example, the spark that set off a Cantonese case from
1735, that of Liao Mingxian. 24 Liao Mingxian was one of three sons (the other two
were Liao Mingyang and Liao Mingru) of Liao Riying. After their father died, the
brothers split the estate and lived separately, while their mother lived and worked
at Liao Mingxian's home. Trouble began with the death of Liao Mingru's wife,
which left him with two children to raise on his own. He tried to persuade his
mother to move from Liao Mingxian's house to his, but she was not swayed. Then,
on May 7, 1735, Liao Mingru went to ask his mother to watch his children while he
went to work in the fields. Because there was a lot to do at Liao Mingxian's at the
moment, she refused his request, suggesting that he find someone else. Liao Mingru
then flew into a fury and cursed his mother, saying that she favored Liao Mingxian,
since she was willing to work for him but not to take care of Liao Mingru's children.
Liao Mingxian, who was cleaning fish nearby, overheard his older brother curse
their mother, got upset, and reprimanded him for his remarks. Unable to bear his
younger brother's criticism, Liao Mingru put down his infant son and grabbed a
carrying-pole to beat Liao Mingxian. Taking the knife that he had been using to
clean fish, Liao Mingxian stabbed his older brother Liao Mingru in the right side of
the throat; Liao Mingru fell on the ground and died soon after. Panicked, Liao
Mingxian dropped the knife and fled.
Their mother desperately tried to conceal Liao Mingxian's crime. Her oldest son,
Liao Mingyang, wanted to report the murder, but she stopped him by saying that she
had already lost one son that day, and, if they reported the crime, Liao Mingxian
24 Xingke tiben by Yang Qiubin (governor of Guangdong), dated Yongzheng 13.12.13 [January 25,
1736], catalog number 2-78-1-109.
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would also be killed. Liao Mingyang relented and agreed to follow her orders to buy
wood for a coffin and prepare Liao Mingru's corpse for burial. Then, when the head
of their security group (baozhang), Li Xingrang, and neighbors Liao Zongpu and Li
Yajun learned of what had happened and wanted to report the crime, she stopped
them by threatening to commit suicide. Ultimately, however, despite her efforts, the
crime was reported to the county magistrate of Xinhui County. While the
magistratc was lenicnt toward thc mother and eldest son, and did not sentence them
to any punishment for attempting to conceal the crime, the mother's predictions
about her youngest son's fate were accurate: Liao Mingxian was sentenced to
immediate bchcading.
This case illustrates some of the ways in which the relationship to parents
mediated relations between brothers. The conflict between the Liao brothers
revolved around access to the valuable labor of their mother, as well as thc more
abstract, yet perhaps more visceral, issue of filial respect and piety. Charges of
unfilial behavior were one way in which the fraternal hierarchy could be challenged,
especially when the charge was backed up by the parent. Younger brothers in these
cases suggested that the older brother had forfeited his prerogatives and authority
bccause of his lack of filiality. The shared responsibility for and obedience toward
parents also emphasized the collective nature of fraternity, which made brothers
responsible for and affected by their siblings' actions.
THE COLLECTIVE AND SHARED NATURE of fraternity is also clear in another scenario
found fairly often in fratricide cases-the calculated elimination of a brothcr
because his actions were becoming an embarrassment or a threat. In particular,
criminal or equally outrageous behavior on the part of a brother that seemed to
threaten the overall position or reputation of the family could lead to informal clan
"justice." One example is the murder of Xu San. By the time of his killing, Xu San
had already committed several robberies and thefts; he had an "arrest record" and
had been punished by the county magistrate courPS His older brother, Xu Dabin,
testified that he had tried on numerous instances to persuade his brother to change
his ways, all to no avail. Frustrated, Xu Dabin told his maternal uncle, Song Da, that
he was worried about suffering for Xu San's crimes and wanted to kill him to
eliminate that threat. The document does not make clear the exact substance of Xu
Dabin's worries; the language that he uses (qianlei-to drag into trouble, or to
involve) suggests a concern that he might be liable for any thefts that Xu San
committed. 26 Perhaps, too, Xu Dabin was angry that his younger brother refused to
listen to his remonstrations. Whatever the case, Song Da convinced Xu Dabin to be
patient and to try harder to reform Xu San.
Xu San remained deaf to his brother's sermons. On February 26, 1722, both
brothers turned up at a new year's celebration at Song Da's housc.27 That night, for
some unspecified reason, Xu Dabin's patience snapped, and he decided to carry out
his plan to kill Xu San. He asked Song Da for help. "Xu San," he said to him, "is
25
26
27
Zhang, Mingqing dangan, 40: 22523-36.
Zhang, Mingqing dangan, 40: 22530.
The date was the eleventh day of the first month in the Chinese calendar.
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a thief and will not change. I will be hassled because of him. Killing him would be
good. However, the only problem is that I can't do it by myself. There is no one to
help me."28 Song Da agreed to help, and together they convinced Xu Dabin's
neighbor, Pu Chengyou, to join them. Xu Dabin inveigled his brother into going
with him to Helaizi Bridge, where Pu Chengyou was lying in wait. Pu Chengyou
knocked Xu San to the ground, and then Xu Dabin strangled him with Pu
Chengyou's sash. Xu Dabin had Pu Chengyou tie Xu San's feet with the sash, and
they tossed his corpse into the river. Two days later, the corpse was discovered by
the head of the local security unit, Zhang Shengxian, and by Zhuang Rui. Later, a
villager, Jin Meichen, overheard Xu Dabin's wife saying that the corpse resembled
her brother-in-law Xu San. Jin went to look at the corpse, recognized it, and
reported the crime. Xu Dabin was sentenced to banishment; his accomplices
received lesser sentences.
Like challenges to parental authority, then, criminal behavior was an issue that
prompted brothers to see fratcrnity as a collcctive conccpt, which crcated connections between brothers that could not be severed because of individual interests.
Brothers were, in the minds of the participants in these cases, forever bound to one
another; like it or not, they could not avoid the effects that a sibling's behavior or
actions might have, both on themselves and on their larger family. This attitude led
both younger and older brothers to claim the right to discipline a sibling who was
violating social or familial norms.
FRATERNAL DISPUTES IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA revolved mostly, as we have seen, over
the issues of ownership of property, relationship to parents, or criminal or other
inappropriate behavior. However, while these immediate concerns were very
important, the underlying conflict found in these cases was also vital. On a deeper
level, these cases involved the question of the meaning assigned to and responsibilities incumbent upon fraternity in late imperial society.
What did fraternity mean to men in late imperial China? Certainly, it appears
that older and younger brothers tended to see it differently. The demands and
actions of the older brothers in many of these cases indicate that they believed
fraternity meant they had the right to command and their younger brothers had the
obligation to obey. This hierarchical notion of fraternity is similar to what was
enshrined in state law and the dominant ideology of Neo-Confucianism. By
contrast, some younger brothers saw the elevated status of older brothers to be
relatively limited; in particular, a few resisted and fiercely resented any notion that
this status might give older brothers economic privilege within the family. Thus,
when an older brother demanded a larger share of the family estate, and a younger
brother resisted it, as was the case with Xie Kui and Xie Biao, in one sense they
were fighting over property. But, on another level, they were arguing over the extent
to which the definitions of older and younger brother determined their position in
relation to that property. In a sense, one could argue that they were grappling with
28
Zhang, Mingqing dangan, 40: 22528.
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the question of whether fraternity implied difference-as in the stark contrast
between older and younger brothers promoted in Confucianism-or similarity.
However, the diversity of opinion over fraternity cannot simply be understood as
a clash between older and younger brothers who, primarily out of self-interest,
came to different understandings over what being a brother implied. Another
conflict besides the question of difference versus equality is that between a
collective notion of fraternity and a more individualistic notion. While in conflicts
involving property rights, both younger and older brothers in these cases jealously
guarded their individual interests from demands of other members of their family
and clearly enforced boundaries between communal and personal property (or
blurred the boundaries for their own benefit), in disputes over the behavior of a
brother, men instead asserted a common identity that gave one brother the right to
intervene in the affairs of the other, demand that he change his behavior, and
discipline him if he failed to comply. In these cases, brothers sought to justify or to
explain their fratricides by referring to obligations they owed to their entire family,
as well as criticizing their brother's failure to adhere to those obligations. Thus both
collective and individualistic conceptions of fraternity were invoked, by younger and
older brothers alike. Similarly, the right to use force to deal with fraternal conflict
was claimed by both younger and older brothers. Brothers argued that it was
necessary to correct or punish criminal or unfilial behavior on the part of a brother.
Brothers in these cases positioned themselves as the defenders of orthodox
behavior. In most of their testimonies, they identified egregious actions-criticizing
a parent, criminal behavior-as the cause of what had led them to violence. Nor was
the assertion of this right to punish confined to the brother on trial; there are
examples of parents and other relatives actively encouraging both younger and
older brothers to deal harshly with their misbehaving sibling. Thus many of these
quarrels represented a struggle over the degree of control one brother (usually,
though not always, the older) could exercise over another.
While the law and the dominant ideology of Neo-Confucianism promoted a
hierarchical fraternity, when we look beyond the realm of legal decisions and
judicial reasoning, we encounter a world in which far more flexibility and variety
existed in the definition of fraternity. Recent work on gender relations and roles in
late imperial China has also focused attention on the complex and shifting
connections between models of normative behavior as defined by orthodox
Neo-Confucianism and the actual experiences of men and women who lived lives
that appear, at least at first, to depart from these models. Dorothy Ko's recent book
on learned women in seventeenth-century China, for example, explores how these
women studied, interacted, and traveled without-in their view-violating Confucian norms of feminine behavior. 29 Matthew Sommer's work on sexual relations
between men in the late imperial period has also demonstrated the ways in which
men involved in these relations both upheld and transgressed normative models. 30
Fraternity, like gender, can be understood as a social category that takes shape and
29 Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth· Century China
(Stanford, Calif., 1994).
30 Matthew H. Sommer, "The Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and
Social Stigma," Modern China 23 (April 1997).
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2000
Adrian Davis
1640
acquires meaning in the interaction of models and realities, and in the space
between desired norms and actual practices.
The conception of fraternity that emerges from a study of these cases is thus not
one that simply rejects the official, hierarchical model. Certainly, there is abundant
evidence that this official model was believed in and adhered to by some,
particularly those who stood to benefit from it. But other evidence suggests there
was another conception of fraternity-one that rejected any misuse of hierarchical
authority, both in material and more broadly social terms. The question, then, was
not whether, as in the case of the male friendships Norman Kutcher discusses, the
relationship between brothers should be equal or hierarchical; rather, the conflicts
were over the extent of the prerogatives that hierarchy conferred. The contested
nature of fraternity in late imperial China bears out Pierre Bourdieu's point that
"the closest genealogical relationship, that between brothers, is also the point of
greatest tension."31
31
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Richard Nice, trans. (Cambridge, 1977), 39.
A 1986 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Adrian Davis
received his PhD in history in 1995 from Harvard University, where he studied
under the direction of Philip A. Kuhn. He taught East Asian history from 1995
to 1998 at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Davis is
currently a third-year law student at New York University School of Law.
AMER1CAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
DECEMBER
2000