Judith BANISTER

Mothers and teachers take beribboned little girls to a park. PHOTO BY JOAN LEBOLD COHEN.
Marriage in China is essentially universal; divorce is rare. The traditional family system is based on male kinship. Since the 1970s China’s family-planning policy has required couples who want a child to apply for permission.
For twenty-five hundred years, through relatively secure and stable times and through stormy and catastrophic times, China’s family system has provided