The Incomplete Inversion

As the centre of kinship research, descent and marriage are always the theme of ethnography that can never be bypassed. Under the main kinship system controled by Han's patrilineal descent, there are still some other descent and marriage structure different from Han's in Chinese civilization. All my research's concern is about such a kind of unique kinship system: the uxorilocal marriage in Xi Zhou, where lived China's Bai minority who have close contact with Han.During the research procedure, I want to explain the whole process of uxorilocal marriage and the relational structure with which it stands in Xi Zhou through organizing my field notes together with relevant literature and also the structural analysis of them. At the same time, in order to display its importance to the ethnic composition and the stable character in itself, I would like to put uxorilocal marriage under a more widly historical background. So I want to make this research develop toward two orientations: one is to define uxorilocal marriage in Xi Zhou Bai's social and culture interior, the other is to emphasize its significance to both the collision and connection of two different cultures out of total social constitute. In my opinion, the main points to analyse Xi Zhou Bai's uxorilocal marriage structurally are as follows:Firstly, as a place where experiences closely culture intersection, Xi Zhou has a compound culture character which are different from both Bai and Han. Reflected in the specific institutional arrangements of uxorilocal marriage, it also demonstrates a compound character under different civilization, which is not only contained in its ritual process, but also hidden in the historical convertion of uxoriloal marriage.Secondly, as a special kind of marriage style, how the uxorilocal marriage have a relation with the vertical descent has very important influence on Xi Zhou Bai's kinship system. Through the significance analysis of uxorilocal marriage, what I mean is to combain the unique inversion displayed by uxorilocal marriage with a deeper theoretical discussion.Lastly, how to combine the former two points together is the key point of my text. As a widder and deeper outcome of culture contact and collision, uxorilocal marriage itself also has a reaction on absorbing and reshaping external civilization. On the one hand, there is a strong correlation between uxorilocal marriage and Xi Zhou Bai's total marriage rules, which means that the former has always broken through the latter, and also did they try to break through their dilemma made by such rules through uxorilocal marriage. On the other hand, uxorilocal marriage reflects the solid core of neutral descent, through the absorption and remodeling of Han's patrilineal descent principle.Through the display of uxorilocal marriage from the ritual beginning to the whole daily life, I generalize all the details as one phrase: the incomplete inversion. In Xi Zhou, uxorilocal marriage during mostly times is the inversion of non-uxorilocal marriage, however, it carefully keeps the descent character under the superficial inversion at the same time. Descent in Xi Zhou, is both patrilineal and neutral, both unilateral and bilateral. Behind the superficially patrilineal Xi Zhou, the universal existence of uxorilocal marriage tells us that under Han's patrilineal descent system Bai's own neutral system is still playing an important role. The deeper significance it contains is to keep ethical stable, which is much more important to a ethnic who is reluctantly but inevitablely changing into Han. Through such compound descent and marriage mode, system modifies itself continually, at the same time resolves the conflicts from its inherent structure.