The editors' Introduction states the aim of this book as being “to question and revise the ‘lineage paradigm’ − originally inspired by the groundbreaking work of the late Maurice Freedman,” but it should not be understood that this is a hatchet job, and explicitly or implicitly almost every contributor writes with Freedman's work as a given base, neither flawless nor complete, but a solid one from which further exploration can be undertaken. The principal dissatisfaction with the lineage paradigm is identified as being its failure to take into account the many and varied ways in which relationships in Chinese society were more complex than the paradigm suggests and in particular the failure to give weight to non-patrilineal ties of both a kinship and extra-kinship kind. To this must be added the understandable datedness of Freedman's work after the lapse of half a century and the very real changes that have resulted from political, social and economic upheavals, as well as greatly enhanced access now that fieldwork opportunities in China have opened up.

It is inevitable and proper that such a re-evaluation should be weighted towards the situation of women in Chinese society, and much of the work here deals with female-centric relationships, but this is not a book about feminism in China and it does not confine itself to a narrow definition of kinship. Rather it attempts to flesh out the picture of personal relationships which draw individuals into wider society, and while the family and kinship are of great importance in this, there are other less well recognized links which cross-cut, offset or complement kinship. The authors do not deny the existence of the patrilineal family, but they very successfully demonstrate that there is a great deal more to relationships than the hierarchical generation-age-gender model can reveal. This is not about stereotypes.

Ellen Judd contrasts the view of men's attachment to place and continuity with the strength and effects of women's allotted social role of enforced change (“rupture”); Hua Han describes the sad state of enforced bachelorhood of poorer men in the countryside, a picture which would have benefited from a more historical approach, since the modern situation may not be so very different from the traditional; and William Jankowiak sketches an urban living scenario for Mongolia that is not unfamiliar to city dwellers elsewhere. Sara Friedman's paper on “homosociality” opens up a new dimension in relationships, detailing some of the ways in which close same-sex friendships work to ameliorate or perhaps substitute for family shortcomings. Goncalo Santos skates on the thin ice of tautology when he builds his paper on the literal importance of wan faahn sihk (Cantonese: ‘looking for food to eat’, an everyday expression for “making a living”), but he has some interesting things to say about commensality. Charles Stafford applies commonsense to dispel any remaining notions that women were ever totally powerless in China; and Susanne Brandtstädter draws interesting comparisons between the roles of women on two similar islands on opposite sides of the Taiwan Straits. Francesca Bray's argument that real maternity is concerned with the bringing up of children rather than with biological process elegantly and persuasively links historical concubinage with modern surrogate motherhood (though she is incorrect in saying that a concubine could not in the past be promoted to the status of wife). Andrew Kipnis explores the complicated tensions between family and education, where parents make huge sacrifices to fund schooling which in the end tends to alienate children from the very institution which is supporting them. And finally Stephan Feuchtwang presents a fascinating example of the interplay of politics, accident and family connections in a tragic episode in Taiwan's history.

This is a very readable and stimulating collection of papers, a view that Maurice Freedman would surely have endorsed.