IN rural China today, as in times past, ‘the family’ (jia) is central to women's and men's perceptions of themselves, their work patterns and their relations with others. As in other cultures, however, the Chinese concept of family is fluid. Associated with it are a range of meanings and spheres of significance.

On the one hand, women and the family have commonly been linked in discussions of one particular set of issues – woman as wife, mother and daughter-in-law, as domestic worker, and as belonging to, and being most strongly identified with, the ‘inside’ sphere. In this sense the family has been ‘both central and delimiting for women's lives’, and has been defined in opposition to the ‘outside’ domain of men. At other times, women have been cast as outsiders to the family, here defined in terms of patrilocality, patrilineality, networks of male kinship ties and the importance of male descendants.

In this chapter I will examine the significance of the family in these two senses for an understanding of women's work patterns and gender divisions of labour, and the links between these and other aspects of gender relations. These, I argue, are both affected by gender divisions of labour, and, at the same time, play a part in determining and maintaining particular gender divisions of labour, and the meanings which these divisions have for women.