418 SYSTEMS OP CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



The wives of these several sons and nephews are my daughters-in-law ; and the 

 husbands of these several daughters and nieces are my sons-in-law, each of them 

 addressing me by the correlative terms, which last usage runs through the system ; 

 but they are distinguished from each other, and from my own sons-in-law and 

 daughters-in-law, by the terms expressive of the class to which they severally 

 belong. This disposes of the first collateral line. 



A digression may be here allowed to observe that descent, amongst the Chinese, 

 as to the family name, is limited to the male line, and followed strictly. Family 

 names are still used in the primitive sense. They call themselves, as a nation or 

 people, Pili-sing, which signifies " The Hundred Families." The idea of the 

 family and of the family name, as it now exists in the Aryan family, was compara- 

 tively modern, and of slow growth. It appears to have been imperfectly reached 

 outside of this great family. Originally the idea expressed itself in tribes, the 

 family being then unknown. The descendants of an original pair, or of the founder 

 of a family, assumed a distinctive name to perpetuate the memory of their common 

 descent. Into this general name, the names of individuals and of immediate con- 

 sanguinei were absorbed. They thus became a tribe, or a great family, united by 

 the bond of kin, and distinguished by a common tribal name. Such, in all proba- 

 bility, were the original " hundred families" of the Chinese. Under this organization 

 the names of persons, whilst they might indicate the tribe, would not show that 

 the members of the same household, or children of the same parents, were related 

 to each other, except generally as the members of a great family or circle of 

 kindred. To the all-creative Roman mind the Aryan family is chiefly indebted for 

 the full development of the idea of the gens with its subordinate distinctions as 

 expressed by the prenomen, nomen, and cognomen, out of which, at a later day, came 

 the family as now constituted, with the Christian and surname, the latter descend- 

 ing in the male line. Mr. Hart further states that at present there are but four 

 hundred family names in China, 1 or about that number. It seems probable, par- 

 ticularly from the prohibition of intermarriage in the same family, that the " Hun- 

 dred Families" of the Chinese were the remains or the result of their ancient tribal 

 subdivisions. With them, therefore, in a more marked sense than with us, the 

 females were regarded as transferred to the families of their respective husbands. 

 The male descendants of a man's brothers would retain his family name ; whilst 

 his sisters, and their female descendants would assume those of their respective 

 husbands. 



In the second collateral line male, on the father's side, and irrespective of the 

 sex of Ego, I call my father's brother, if older than my own father, poh-fu, my 



"In some parts of the country," he remarks, "large villages are met with, in each of which there 

 exists but one family name ; thus, in one district will be found, say, three Tillages, each containing 

 two or three thousand people, the one of the 'horse,' the second of the 'sheep,' and the third of 

 the ' ox' family name." The Rev. J. V. N. Talmadge, a returned American missionary from Amoy, 

 mentioned the same fact to the writer. He spoke of one village of five thousand inhabitants, all of 

 whom had the same name, with a few exceptions. The most interesting fact connected with this 

 matter is the prohibition of intermarriage amongst all of those who bear the same family name, for 

 reason of consanguinity. 



