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Adoption in Han China
Article in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient · April 2009
DOI: 10.1163/156852009X434346
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Journal of the Economic and
Social History of the Orient 52 (2009) 229-266 brill.nl/jesh
Miranda Brown and Rafe de Crespigny*
Abstract
We investigate surviving legal statutes regarding inheritance and descriptions of adoption
from the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), asking to what extent there was consensus
among the literate elite about the rules for adoption. We argue that, in contrast to later
periods, there is little evidence for the existence of any single set of classical prescriptions.
Instead, the Han ruling elite had at their disposal a variety of legitimate strategies for deci-
ding whether to and how to incorporate outsiders into the household. Such strategies
involved different parties, contrasting principles, and diverging rationales.
Nous examinons les statuts juridiques qui portent sur les successions, aussi bien que les
descriptions d’adoption, avec le but d’établir jusqu’à quelle mesure il existait pendant la
dynastie Han (206 av. J.-C.-220 ap. J.-C.) un consensus sur des règles d’adoption auprès
des élites lettrées. On soutient, qu’à la différence des périodes ultérieures, on ne trouve peu
de trace d’un ensemble unique de préscriptions classiques. Les élites de l’époque Han dis-
posaient d’une variété de stratégies différentes pour décider si et de quelle façon ils pou-
vaient intégrer des étrangers dans la famille. De telles stratégies suivaient des règles et des
systèmes de logiques plutôt divergents.
Keywords
adoption, Han, adoption, social rules
It was perhaps fitting that Ying Shao 應劭 (d. ca. 200 CE) began his com-
ments on adoption with a tale of the supernatural. His Discussions of Custom
and Habits (Fengsu tongyi 風俗通義), compiled about 200 CE, relates
the misadventures of a certain Zhou Ba 周霸. When he was a clerk in the
offices of the Grand Commandant at the capital, Zhou Ba’s wife became
*) Miranda Brown, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of

Michigan, mdbrown@umich.edu. Rafe de Crespigny, Faculty of Asian Studies, The
Australian National University, Rafe.deCrespigny@anu.edu.au. The authors thank
Michael Nylan and two anonymous reviewers for their criticisms and suggestions.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/156852009X434346
230 M. Brown, R. de Crespigny / JESHO 52 (2009) 229-266
pregnant and gave birth to a daughter. Ashamed of having produced a girl,

the woman made a secret exchange with a local butcher’s wife, who had
just given birth to a son. Years later, when Zhou Ba was chancellor of
Beihai, he heard that one of his local officers, Zhou Guang 周光, had the
ability to see spirits; Zhou Ba asked this subordinate to accompany his
“son” to the ancestral tomb, saying to him, “When the business is finished,
on the La 臘 New Years Day you can ascend [our family] tomb with my
son. I have been away from home for thirteen years, and have not been
able to offer the sacrifices myself.1 Hide yourself, and check that my ances-
tors are pleased with the food and drink.” So Zhou Guang accompanied
the young man, now eighteen years of age, to the family tomb, and
when he ascended the tomb and poured out a libation, Zhou Guang
concealed himself and looked on. In the spiritual seat, however, he saw
only a “butcher in worn-out robes and a shabby belt, who hacked at the
meat offerings with a knife,” while other spirits crowded miserably in the
shadows behind.
Zhou Guang reported what he saw to his superior. “Go out and say
nothing,” said Zhou Ba, who then took a sword and went to confront his
wife, demanding of her, “Why did you raise ( yang 養) this child?” His wife
at first protested that the child was the spitting image of the parents and
accused her husband of losing his wits, but when Zhou Ba reported what
his subordinate had seen she tearfully confessed to the exchange of chil-
dren. Zhou Ba promptly called in his “son” and dismissed him, explaining,
“Any man who has a son wants him to continue [the line] of his forebears.
If the forebears cannot enjoy the sacrificial meats, there is nothing to
be done.” In his place, Zhou Ba adopted Zhou Xi 周熙, a son of his
younger brother.
For Ying Shao, the meaning of the tale is clear enough; ancestral sacri-
fices offered by the “children of other families” would not be efficacious. As
he succinctly put it, “It is indeed clear that ‘The spirits do not enjoy the
sacrifices of those who are not their kindred.’ ”2
1)
The La sacrifice, held soon after the winter solstice in the twelfth month of the Chinese
year, was a major occasion for sacrifice to family ancestors. See, for example, Derk Bodde,
Festivals in Classical China: New Year and Other Annual Observances During the Han Dynasty
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975): 55.
2)
Ying Shao, Fengsu tongyi jiaozhu 風俗通義校注 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), “Yiwen
佚文”: 591. Ying Shao is quoting Zuozhuan 左傳, tenth year of Duke Xi 僖, where the
saying is quoted as a proverb; see Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu 春秋左傳注
(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981 [1985]): 334. For an earlier discussion of this story, see
Adoption in Han China 231
Ying Shao’s warning is reflected in the general opinion of present-day

scholars about adoption practices in pre-modern China. In his Han Social
Structure, Ch’ü T’ung-tsu asserts that the rules of adoption were in place
by the end of the Eastern Han (25-220 CE)3 and summarizes them: Firstly,
where the chances of potency, accident, age, or sexual preference prevented
the natural birth of a suitable son, an heir (hou 後 or si 嗣) should be
appointed to perform the ancestral sacrifices and to continue the line.
Secondly, this heir was to be selected from a member of the same lineage
or surname group. According to Ch’ü and others, such criteria can be tra-
ced back to the Yi li 儀禮.4 As Ch’ü puts it, “It was commonly believed that
the spirit of a dead man would not accept any offerings from a man who
had a different surname and who was not consanguineously related to
him.” In this regard, Ch’ü’s findings have been largely supported by Huang
Jinshan’s important paper on Han kinship. “Ordinarily,” Huang writes,
“the party being adopted was a member of the same clan, a close relative,
junior member of the clan, a nephew, or a clansman.”5 Though the rules
were apparently thus clear, later scholarly discussions note the existence of
deviations from classical norms in Han times—deviations, Ch’ü suggests,
that were most likely “unlawful.”6 Huang has a slightly different perspec-
tive: he agrees that such deviations were increasingly stigmatized, but argues
that these “irregular” adoptions were not yet illegal in the Han. If we fol-
low Ch’ü and others, therefore, Han ideals of adoption were very much
like those found in late imperial China, including those in effect during
the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties: it was expected
that a man without a son would adopt a male heir, and that the heir would
Ann Waltner, Getting an Heir: Adoption and the Construction of Kinship in Late Imperial
China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1990): 68-69.
3)
Han Social Structure by T’ung-tsu Ch’ü (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972)
is currently the major work in the field in a Western language. His long introductory essay,
however, has only two pages [18-20] on adoption, and no specific references in the index.
4)
Zhao Pei 趙沛, “Han Tang shiqi de huanguan yangzi yu huanguan shijia” 漢唐時期的
宦官養子與宦官世家.” Dongyue luncong 東岳論叢 26.4 (2005): 116-19; 118. On Yi li,
see the article by William G. Boltz, “Yi li.” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide,
ed. Michael Loewe (The Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East
Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1993): 234-243.
5)
Huang Jinshan 黃金山, “Handai jiating chengyuan de diwei he yiwu 漢代家庭成員的
地位和義務.” Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究 2 (1988): 33-49; 41.
6)
Ch’ü, Han Social Structure: 19
be a close agnate. Deviations from the rule occurred, as in Han, but they
were illegal and frowned upon by the ruling and cultural elite.7
Though the thrust of Ying Shao’s views is obvious, it is less clear how
his peers thought, and how they acted. Did the literate elites recognize a
set of rules or codes with respect to adoption? The question must be asked,
since recent scholarship has questioned whether classical norms had made
much headway as orthodoxy in the Han. Judging from records of mour-
ning and female remarriage—two standard metrics for gauging “Confucia-
nization”—the norms were often disregarded, reflecting the generally
eclectic orientation of the Han political and cultural elite. As Michael
Nylan, Mark Csikszentmihalyi, and Kidder Smith have recently shown,
moreover, the Han court never exclusively sponsored any single interpreta-
tion of the classics.8
In this paper, we offer a study of adoption practices during the Han
period, with special attention to the Eastern Han (25-220 CE). We inves-
tigate examples of adoption, for which we follow the broad definition of
anthropologists Arthur Wolf and Chieh-shan Huang as being “a transac-
tion involving those rights over a child that a person holds as the child’s
7)
On this point, see James L. Watson, “Agnates and Outsiders: Adoption in a Chinese
Lineage.” Man 10.2 (1975): 293-306; 294-95; Ann Waltner, Getting an Heir: 6-7.
8)
Michael Nylan, “A Problematic Model: The Han ‘Orthodox Synthesis,’ Then and Now.”
In Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics, ed.
Kai-wing Chow et al. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999): 17-56; Mark
Csikszentmihalyi and Michael Nylan, “Constructing Lineages and Inventing Traditions
through Exemplary Figures in Early China.” T’oung Pao 89 (2003): 1-41; Kidder Smith,
“Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism,’ et cetera.” Journal of Asian Studies 62.1
(2003): 129-56.
For evidence that the political elite did not abide by what later thinkers associated with
classical norms, see Kamiya Noriko 神矢法子, “Gokan jidai ni okeru ‘karei’ o megutte
iwayuru ‘gokanmatsu fûzoku’ saikô no kokoromi to shite 後漢時代における ‘過禮’ をめ
ぐって-所謂 ‘後漢末風俗’ 再考の試みとして.” Kyûshû daigaku tôyôshi ronshû 九州大學
東洋史論集 7 (1979): 27-40; Jack Dull, “Marriage and Divorce in Han China: A Glimpse
at ‘Pre-Confucian’ Society.” In Chinese Family Law and Social Change in Historical and
Comparative Perspective, ed. David C. Buxbaum (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1978): 23-74. For more recent formulations of this thesis, see Yang Tianyu 楊天宇, “Lüe-
lun Handai de sannian sang 略論漢代的三年喪.” Zhengzhou daxue xuebao (Zhexue shehui
kexueban) 鄭州大學學報 (哲學社會科學版) 35.5 (2002): 63-69; Keith Knapp, Selfless
Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China (Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i, 2005): 20-45, 142-63.
parent or foster parent.”9 We ask whether there was widespread consensus

among the literate elite about the rules, rationales, and even the necessity
for adoption in cases where male offspring was lacking.
To be sure, there are limitations to what can be accomplished by this
study. To begin with, we must recognize the paucity of evidence. All told,
records of some forty adoptions exist, along with a scattering of legal cases,
statutes, and social commentaries, and these are, naturally enough, concer-
ned primarily with the literate elite, local gentry and office-holders. Fur-
thermore, the documentation is uneven. As shown in Table below, virtually
all of our evidence survives from the Eastern Han: only two incidences are
recorded in the Han shu 漢書.10 Yet adoptions must have occurred during
this period,11 and in two decisions attributed to Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒
(ca. 179-ca. 104 BCE), now preserved in the Tongdian 通典, he argues that
an adoptive father was like a natural father.12 And there is the problem of
terminology, for the Han Chinese lacked a single expression that corres-
ponds to our notion of adoption: they employed a number of different
terms to refer to social relationships modeled after that between parent and
child. In biographies of the imperial clan, the common formulae are “to
maintain the sacrifices” (奉 . . . 祀 feng . . . si) or “to continue the succession”
(後 hou). Similar phrases were used among commoners; a man might be
“established as a successor” (li yiwei hou 立以爲後). The character yang 養
[literally, “nourish”] also appears, either in a verbal sense “to adopt” or
as an attribute, so yangzi 養子 “adopted son.” This term, however, is
not always decisive, and there are other expressions which may refer to
9)
Arthur P. Wolf and Chien-shan Huang, Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980): 112-13; also see Judith S. Modell, Kinship with
Strangers: Adoption and Interpretations of Kinship in American Culture (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994): 2. Modell follows Morton L. Leavy and R.D. Weinberg (Law of
Adoption; Dobbs Ferry, New York, 1979) as follows: ‘a procedure which establishes the
relationship of parent and child between persons not so related by nature.’ For a more
restrictive definition, one that insists on the complete severing of ties between the adoptee
and his natal family, see Jack Goody, “Adoption in Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Compara-
tive Studies of Society and History 11.1 (1969): 55-78.
10)
Ban Gu 班固, Han shu 漢書 [hereafter HS] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962): 59.2651-
52; HS: 99A.4039.
11)
There is also evidence of adoption in Qin times. The Shuihudi 睡虎地 strips (ca. 227 BCE),
for example, mention the penalties for a man who had killed his adopted heir, a fraternal
nephew: see Shuihudi Qinmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu 睡虎地秦墓竹簡整理小組, Shuihudi
Qinmu zhujian 睡虎地秦墓竹簡, “Falü dawen 法律答問”: 110.
12)
Du You 杜佑 [compiler], Tongdian 通典 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002): 69.1911.
adoption but may be more general: “to treat so-and-so as a child” (yi . . . wei
zi 以 . . . 爲子), “to take in” (shou 收), “or recognize someone as a child”
(ren 認).13 As will be shown below, all of these terms were used interchan-
geably, inconsistently, and to different ends.
Disclaimers aside, we open our discussion with the question whether
adoption was indeed an imperative, as previous studies have suggested.
Was a man without sons obliged to select a male heir to take over the
sacrifices and to inherit his property? Looking at legal statues and court
cases over four centuries, we argue that, although the practice of adopting
agnates existed, it was not universal among the elite. We then turn to the
question of whom the Han elite adopted, noting that the sources indicate
the existence of a number of respectable and legally-sanctioned options,
including the adoption of distaff and maternal relatives. Finally we turn to
the question why people took in children from other families. As will
appear below, adoptions were not performed merely for the disposal of
property or the continuity of the patriline; adoptions could serve also to
create or strengthen alliances between individuals or families.
Consideration of the evidence that we have been able to gather reveals
significant limitations to those approaches which treat any departure from
classical prescription as a deviation from a unitary social norm. Instead, it
appears that Han elites made use of several varied “strategies of action.”14
To Adopt or Not to Adopt

We begin by asking whether a man without an heir of his own was expec-
ted or required to adopt a male to fulfill that role? There are certainly rea-
sons to believe that this must have been the case: in particular, much has
been made about the importance of ancestor worship in China. As Ann
Waltner has put it, ancestor worship made it “absolutely mandatory” that
a family have an heir.15 At face value, the Han commentator to the Men-
cius, Zhao Qi 趙岐/歧 (d. 201), provides support for such a reading, as he
observes, “Not to get married and to be without offspring, thereby cutting
13)
For a complete list of examples of each term, see Table.
14)
We borrow “strategies of action” from Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and
Strategies.” American Sociological Review 51.2 (1986): 274-86; 273.
15)
Waltner, Getting an Heir: 73; cf. James L. Watson, “Agnates and Outsiders”: 294; cf.
Bettine Birge, Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yuan China (960-1368)
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 109-110.
off the sacrifices of one’s forebears—this is the third kind of impiety” (buqu

wuzi jue zuxian si san buxiao 不娶無子絕先祖祀三不孝).16 Our expecta-
tions also owe something to the situation in late imperial China, where
clans were required by law to adopt in cases where no male issue had been
produced.17 Our sources from the Han period, however, provide a different
picture, indicating that adoption was optional under such circumstances.
It was legal for the property and noble rank of a man without sons to pass
to his kin and even to unrelated members of the household, without the
formality of male adoption. And some did choose this procedure, even
when there were eligible nephews available.
What evidence is there to show that adoptions were not strictly neces-
sary? The statutes (lü 律) discovered at the Zhangjiashan 張家山 site
(ca. 187 BCE) indicate that siblings, daughters, wives, and even slaves
could inherit property in cases where the deceased man had no sons. One
section, known as the Zouyanshu 奏讞書, summarizes the rules as follows:
故律曰死夫(?) 以男為後. 毋男以父母, 毋父母以妻,毋妻以子女為後
The old statues observe: in cases in which the husband of a family (?) has died, his son
will become his heir; if there is no son, then use his father and mother; if there is
no father or mother, then use his wife; if there is no wife, then use his daughter as
an heir.18
Several points arise from this. For a start, the use of the term hou 後 bears
explanation. In contrast to late imperial China, where the term referred to
males who inherited property and maintained ancestral sacrifices, it appears
that in this context hou refers to individuals with property rights, including
daughters, wives, and mothers.19 The inclusion of women, especially those
16)
Mengzi 孟子 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1929-1936): 7b/16a.
17)
S. Van Der Sprenkel, Legal Institutions in Manchu China (London: L.S.E. Monographs
on Social Anthropology, 1962): 16; cf. Wang Yinfang 王銀芳, “Zhongri gudai yangzi
xianxiang de chayixing fenxi 中日古代養子現象的差異性分析.” Qiyejia tiandi 企業家天地
2006.2: 131-32.
18)
Zhangjiashan ersiqi hao Hanmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu 張家山二四七號漢墓竹簡整
理小組 Zhangjiashan Hanmu zhujian (ersiqi hao mu) 張家山漢墓竹簡 (二四七號墓)
(Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2001): 227. For a similar discussion of the inheritance rights
of siblings, see Zhangjiashan Hanjian: 184.
19)
Cao Lüning 曹旅寧, “Ernian lüling yu Qin Han jicheng fa 二年律令與秦漢繼承法,”
Shaanxi shifan daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban) 陝西師範大學學報 (哲學社會科學版).”
2008.1: 62-68; cf. Xu Shihong 徐世虹, “Zhangjiashan ernian lüling jian suojian Handai de
jicheng fa 張家山二年律令簡所見漢代的繼承法.” In Zhengfa conglun 政法論叢 2002.5:
of a different surname, underscores a second point: namely, that the desig-

nation of heirs may not be connected to the continuity of the patriline. In
late imperial times, the hou (or sizi 嗣子) had to be at least one generation
junior to the deceased, since the heir was responsible for carrying on the
ancestral sacrifices.20 During the Han, in contrast, heirs could include
members of the senior generation; in fact, early Han codes on inheritance
appear to have favored senior members of the household over juniors: note
how in the text above the parents and wife are given precedence over the
daughter in the inheritance of property.21 Interestingly, there is no mention
of the property rights of the fraternal nephew, who would seem to be a
logical choice if the maintenance of ancestral sacrifices was a priority.
Indeed, if the point of inheritance law was to guarantee that sacrifices
would not be “cut off,” then it is difficult to understand why the codes did
not require a younger male from the patriline to be adopted.22
In addition, the codes indicate that similar principles applied to the
transmission of noble rank:
□□□□爲縣官有爲也, 以其故死若傷二旬中死, 皆爲死事者, 令子男襲其爵。毋爵者,

其後爲公士。毋子男以女, 毋女以父, 毋父以母, 毋母以男同産, 毋男同産以女同産。
毋女同産以妻。諸死事当置后, 毋父母、妻子、同産者以大父, 毋大父以大母與
同居數者。
If a man holds local office in the county and dies in the course of his duty, or dies
within twenty days of being injured in the course of his duty, affairs stemming from
9-17; Zang Zhifei 臧知非, “Zhangjiashan Hanjian suojian Xi Han jicheng zhidu chulun
張家山漢簡所見西漢繼承制度初論.” Wenshizhe 文史哲 6 (2003): 73-80.
20)
Walter, Getting an Heir: 23; for this problem in Song law, see Birge, Women, Property,
and Confucian Reaction: 222.
21)
On this point, see Waltner, Getting an Heir: 48. Prior to the Zhangjiashan finds, the
Tang code was the earliest known to deal with adoption, and it states that the adopted child
must be of appropriate generation.
22)
For parallels in the Song dynasty, see Brian McKnight, “Who Gets it When You Go:
The Legal Consequences of the Ending of Households (Juehu) in the Song Dynasty (960-
1279 CE).” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 43.3 (2000): 314-63;
324-25; 333; 341; 354. Song codes allowed co-dwellers to inherit in cases where there were
no sons to carry on the patriline and favored daughters as heirs to the property over post-
humously-appointed heirs selected from within the lineage. For similar observations about
the Tang period, see Birge, Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction: 58-59; for similar
conclusions about the Song, see 109-110; 139-40; 285. Birge argues that the property
rights of daughters were frowned upon by the leaders of the Learning of the Way movement
(who promoted the adoption of agnates); such rights were drastically reduced during the
Yuan period: 148; 197; 227.
the death will be handled as follows: The son shall be caused to inherit the deceased’s
rank of nobility; if the deceased did not possess a noble rank, then his heir shall be
made a gongshi.23 If he is without a son, then his daughter [receives the title]; if there
is no daughter, then his father, if there is no father, then the mother. If there is no
mother, designate a full brother, and if no full brother then the full sister. If there is no
sister, then designate the wife. In cases where there is no father, mother, wife, child, or
sibling, then appoint the grandfather; if there is no grandfather, then designate the
grandmother or someone who was living with the deceased and on the same house-
hold register.24
Differences exist between these instructions and those seen earlier. Whereas
our previous example concerned the inheritance of property, this passage
relates the instructions for transmitting noble ranks ( jue 爵),25 and in this
case, wives are not given precedence over siblings. Otherwise, the passage
exhibits the same lack of interest in maintaining what anthropologist Jack
Goody calls the principles of “vertical inheritance,” a hallmark of social
systems which emphasize adoption.26 As with property, preference was
given to senior members of the household. If nephews were to inherit, it
would be only after the grandparents—and indeed, potentially other
members of the household. (There are other passages which suggest that in
cases where no appropriate kinsmen could be found, the property was to
go to household slaves.)27 The system of inheriting noble ranks, like the
transmission of property, appears to have been distinct and separate from
that of ancestor worship.
One may certainly question whether the Zhangjiashan codes, dating from
early in the Western Han (206 BCE-25 CE), can tell us much about the
Eastern Han more than two hundred years later. As Joseph Levenson put
it, “With the passing time, ideas change,” and we could hardly expect social
values and institutions to have remained static over the four centuries of
the Han period.28 Indeed, some—though not all—scholars argue that
23)
Gongshi 公士 was the lowest of the twenty ranks of nobility under Han, which gave
social and legal privileges. See Michael Loewe, “The Orders of Aristocratic Ranks in Han
China.” T’oung Pao 48.1-3 (1960): 97-174.
24)
Zhangjiashan ersiqi hao Hanmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu, Zhangjiashan: 183.
25)
For remarks about the distinctions drawn between different forms of inheritance, see
Zang, “Zhangjiashan Hanjian”: 76; Xu Shihong, “Zhangjiashan ernian lüling jian suojian
Handai de jicheng fa.”
26)
Goody, “Adoption”: 69-70; 78.
27)
Zhangjiashan ersiqi hao Hanmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu, Zhangjiashan: 185.
28)
Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1958, rpt. 1965): xxvii.
many elites of the first and second centuries CE took the prescriptions of
the classics far more seriously than their counterparts living in the first
centuries of the dynasty.29
Moreover, policies adopted by the imperial court with respect to the
kings may be read as evidence of a marked change in attitudes towards the
inheritance of noble titles and estates. At the very end of the Western Han
an edict issued in the name of Emperor Ping 平 (reg. 1 BCE-6 CE), then
under the dominance of the consort Wang family, authorized grandsons
and fraternal nephews to serve as the heirs of kings in cases where a natural
son was lacking.30 It may be observed that a few years later, following the
death of Emperor Ping, Wang Mang 王莽 (ca. 46 BCE- 23 CE) was
concerned that succession to the throne might pass to an adult great-
grandson of the former Emperor Xuan 宣 (reg. 74-49 BCE). Since Empe-
ror Ping had been a grandson of Emperor Xuan, Wang Mang insisted that
“Brothers may not serve as the heirs of one another” (xiongdi bude xiang
weihou 兄弟不得相為後),31 and by this means he was able to transfer the
imperial succession one generation further on, to the infant Liu Ying 劉嬰
(5-25 CE), who was a great-great-grandson of Emperor Xuan.
Certainly, one must not attribute too much importance to these state-
ments. Wang Mang soon afterwards took the throne for himself, and his
self-serving statement was not necessarily a true rule of propriety. Indeed,
we may note that several rulers of the Eastern Han were succeeded by a
cousin, and one, Liu Zhi 劉志, Emperor Huan 桓 (reg. 146-168) actually
belonged to a senior generation to his predecessor, Liu Zuan 劉纘, Empe-
ror Zhi 質 (reg. 145-146).32
In addition, a recent discovery appears to confirm the continuity of
inheritance practices from the first part of the Western Han period. In
29)
Huang, “Handai jiating”: 42.
30)
HS: 12.349; cf. Homer H. Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty by Pan Ku,
3 vols. (Baltimore 1938, 1944 and 1955) [cited as HFHD]: II.303.
31)
HS: 99A.4078; cf. Dubs, HFHD: III.217-218.
32)
See, for example, Rafe de Crespigny, A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three
Kingdoms (23-220 AD) (Leiden: Brill, 2007): xxxiv-xxxv, Table 2. Liu Zuan was a great-
great-grandson of Liu Da 炟 Emperor Zhang 章 (reg. 75-88); Liu Zhi was a great-grandson.
For further discussion of imperial departures from a system of primogeniture in Han times,
see Anne Behnke Kinney, Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2004): 193-200.
Furthermore, Liu Long 隆 the Shang 殤 “Young” Emperor (reg. 105-106), Liu You 祐
Emperor An 安 (reg. 106-125), and Liu Yi 懿 the Shao 少 “Little” Emperor (reg. 125) were
all grandsons of Liu Zhang.
2004, at Dongpailou 東牌樓 near Changsha, archaeologists discovered the

tomb of a local official dating to the late second century CE. One of the
many sets of strips which were found there recorded a legal case which had
been submitted to superiors concerning a property dispute between four
young people and their maternal relatives around 183 CE. The value of the
find cannot be over-estimated for, as Jia Liying has recently noted, this is
the first record of a legal dispute between family members over property.33
Crucially, it reveals that members of the Han local elite and official class
did not necessarily consider the adoption of agnates as the best course of
action when a son was lacking.
The basic facts of the case were recounted in a memo submitted by two
local officials to their superiors. An adult man Li Jian 李建, together with
his younger brothers, sued their maternal uncle Jing Zhang 精張 and his
nephew, their cousin Jing Xi 精昔, charging them with stealing 8 shi 石 of
their land. The uncle and cousin were arrested, and the officials investiga-
ted the facts of the case, which are as follows: The mother of the boys, Jing
Zheng 精姃, had owned 13 shi of land in total, which she had inherited
from her father, Jing Zong 精宗. Li Sheng 李升, who was the father of
Li Jian and had three other children with Jing Zheng, was called to give a
deposition: he said that Jing Zheng had died not long after her own father,
and that he and her male relatives had taken charge of the disposal of Jing
Zong’s corpse. Li Sheng had then left the county, leaving his two eldest
children in the care of the Jing men, who were living off Jing Zong’s lands.
The officials overseeing the case resolved to divide the disputed property
between the Lis and the Jings, giving only 2 shi to the maternal relatives
and leaving the balance of 6 shi to the sons. As Jia Liying notes, this deci-
sion was confirmed at a higher level, for on the lower left corner of the
large wood strip containing the case, archaeologists found a notation in
bold ink, “Approved.”34
33)
For Jia’s discussion, see “Cong Changsha Dongpailou jiandu kan Handai chujianü
de caichan jicheng 從長沙東牌樓簡牘看漢代出嫁女的財産繼承.” In Jianbo (www.bsm.
org.cn). For the transcription of the case, see Changshashi wenwu kaogu yanjisuo 長沙市
文物考古研究所 and Zhonguo wenwu yanjiusuo 中國文物研究所, Changsha Dongpailou
Dong Han jiandu 長沙東牌樓東漢簡牘 (Beijing: Wenwu, 2006): 73. For the original site
report, see Changshashi wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 長沙市文物考古研究所, “Changsha
Dongpailou qihao gujing (J7) fajue jianbao 長沙東牌樓7號古井 (J7) 發掘簡報.” Wenwu
2005.12: 4-21, 30. For a first attempt to transcribe and annotate the case, see Wang Su
王素, “Changsha Dongpailou Donghan jiandu xuanshi 長沙東牌樓東漢簡牘選釋.” Wenwu
2005.12: 69-75, 40.
34)
Jia, “Cong Changsha Dongpailou.”
How do these facts bear on the matter at hand? Firstly, we may note that
Jing Zong did not appoint a male heir. He had left the land to his daughter
Jing Zheng and not to his son-in-law, who was residing with the Jings and
could have become a “pawned son-in-law” (zhuixu 贅婿). Though the Qin
dynastic rulers (221-206 BCE) went so far as to prohibit such men from
holding government office and other punitive measures, this latter practice
of uxorilocal marriage persisted in Chinese society. And though the paucity
of information makes it impossible to determine how pervasive such a
practice was in early China, anecdotal evidence suggests that such a prac-
tice was maintained by the Han landholding elite.35 More surprisingly still,
Jing Zong had not appointed a male successor, even though a fraternal
nephew was available. The nephew, Jing Xi, had evidently been born before
the death of Jing Zong and was considerably older than his cousins, Jing
Zheng’s sons. Moreover, this nephew had worn mourning for the family
patriarch because the Li grandsons, although they were the acknowledged
heirs of the estate, were too young to preside at the funeral. Given his age,
relationship to the deceased, and responsibility for mourning, Jing Xi
would seem to have been an ideal candidate for adoption. Not only did
this not happen, however, but Jing Xi apparently never claimed that it
should have. Judging from the plaint, Jing Xi had contented himself with
appropriating just a portion of the land and sharing it with his uncle; he
had not made any claim to be the rightful heir. Nor was this possibility
raised by the officials or their superiors, who were responsible for deciding
the merits of the case.
It is true that questions may be raised about what general conclusions
can properly be drawn from a single case, and one must note that no
member of the Jing and Zhang families appears to have held an official
position. Li Jian, his maternal uncle and his cousin are specifically referred
to as “commoners” (min 民), and as none of the other male relatives are
referred to by official title we must assume that all of the Jings and Lis were
likewise of commoner status. So the decision of Jing Zong about his inhe-
ritance may not have reflected the social norms of officials or the literati.
35)
On this point, see Bret Hinsch, “Women, Kinship, and Property as Seen in a Han
Dynasty Will.” T’oung Pao 84.1-3 (1998): 1-20; 5-8; for the few recorded cases of zhuixu
in Han times, see Huang Jinshan, “Handai jiating”: 42-44. For the reasons why people
practice uxorilocal marriage, see Michael Szonyi, Practicing Kinship: Lineage and Descent in
Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002): 3, 38, 74.
There are at least three factors, however, which suggest that Jing Zong’s
behavior was in line with the practices and beliefs of the official elite. First,
present-day Chinese interpreters of the case agree that Jing Zong had been
a wealthy man, although they diverge on the exact figure of his holdings.
(There is uncertainty about the value of a shi as a unit of land).36 So Jing
Zong was at least in a position to become a local officer. Second, his family
members wore mourning (sang 喪)—a sign that they were more than rus-
tics and may have aspired to office, for a reputation of exemplary mourning
enhanced a man’s chances of advancement within the bureaucracy.37 And
thirdly, the official decision to uphold the stake of the Li family indicates
that the legal officials saw no difficulty in approving the transmission of
property through the female line.
Our discussion above has revealed that a man who lacked male issue was
not obliged to adopt an heir, and indeed there was little official encourage-
ment to do so. By allowing property to pass to siblings, wives, and senior
members of the household, Han statutes established a framework where
property and titles could move up and across generations, rather than
down the lineage. And by designating daughters and their children as heirs,
the statutes allowed property and titles to leave the surname group. In this
way, matters of inheritance were divorced from the business of ancestral
sacrifices. Indeed, one might even go so far as to argue that the statutes
undercut the prerogatives of the patriline. By privileging the rights of
siblings, wives, and female children, the statutes discouraged nephews and
male cousins from taking over the sacrifices in exchange for the rights to
property and titles. All this suggests that the patrilineal orientation of the
family, as Bret Hinsch remarks, was indeed weaker in the Han than is
sometimes portrayed.38
36)
For discussion, see Wang Su, “Changsha Dongpailou”: 75 n. 16; for attempts to decode
the meaning of shi, see Zhou Qun 周群, “Yong ‘liumu sanfen’ lai jieshi Changsha Dong-
pailou Dong Han jiandu ‘shi’ shi ying jinshen” 用 “六畝三分” 來解釋長沙東牌樓東漢簡牘
“石” 時應謹慎; Cao Lüning 曹旅寧, “Changsha Dongpailou Dong Han jiandu ‘Li Jian yu
Jing Zhang zheng tian an’ zhong ‘shi’ de jieshi” 長沙東牌樓東漢簡牘 “李建與精張諍田案”
中 “石” 的解釋. The last two can be found on www.bsm.org.cn.
37)
On this point, see Miranda Brown, Politics of Mourning in Early China (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2007): 6; 51-52.
38)
For an actual case dating to ca. 5 CE, see Hinsch, “Women, Kinship, and Property.” A
thrice-married woman (known only as “the old woman”) established the terms by which
her natal property was to be divided between her children. In particular, we note that:
Whom to Adopt
The inheritance of property and titles has so far occupied center stage in
our discussion, but we now turn our attention to a different kind of heir:
those responsible for maintaining ancestral sacrifices. A proclamation
issued in 202 CE by the warlord Cao Cao 曹操 (155-220 CE) attests to
the importance of finding heirs to maintain the patriline:
其舉義兵已來, 將士絕無後者, 求其親戚以後之, 授土田, 官給耕牛, 置學師以教之.

為存者立廟, 使祀其先人, 魂而有靈, 吾百年之後何恨哉 !
Since we first gathered loyal troops [against Dong Zhuo 董卓 (d. 192)], [many of
my] officers and men have died, leaving no descendants [to maintain their sacrifices].
I am seeking members of their kinfolk who may carry on their lineage and take over
their lands. My government will supply them with plough-oxen, arrange schools and
teachers for them, and build temples in order that they may maintain sacrifices to their
ancestors. If the spirits [of the fallen dead] have awareness, then [they should be satis-
fied with these arrangements], and I and my descendants for a hundred years will be
safe from their angry resentment.39
Though the proclamation is straightforward enough, one turn of phrase

catches the eye. Cao Cao used the phrase qinqi 親戚 (kinfolk), rather than
zongzu 宗族 (patrilineal clan members).40 Whereas the former denoted a
wide-spread group, including members of the maternal and distaff clans,
as Ochi Shigeaki points out, the latter was used in the more restrictive
sense of paternal relatives.41 This raises the question: why did Cao Cao not
just say zongzu, if the point of such adoptions was to ensure that sacrifices
were maintained for those who had died in war, and if their spirits did not
accept offerings from those of different surnames? We know Ying Shao
would not have approved, for we have already seen him condemn the prac-
1. the woman returned to her own family after the death of her first husband and raised
her son there;
2. she retained considerable discretion over the parceling of her property;
3. she awarded her own daughters temporary custody of her lands.
39)
Chen Shou 陳壽, Sanguo zhi 三國志 [hereafter SGZ] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959):
Wei: 1.22-23.
40)
For an example of the use of zongzu, see the stele inscription dedicated to Yan Ju 嚴舉
in Li xu 隸續, compiled by Hong Kuo 洪适 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983): 11.4b-8a.
41)
Ochi Shigeaki 越智重明, “Gi-shin ni okeru ‘Ishi no ka’ ni tsuite 魏晉における
「異子の科」について.” Tôhôgaku 東方學 22 (1961): 1-9; 2.
tice of adopting individuals of a different surname. Yet Ying’s opinion

appears to have been a minority one, and it was certainly at odds with the
published policies of the most powerful man of his day.42 To put it another
way, is it not possible that in the late second and early third centuries
different-surname adoptions were in fact regarded as legitimate by the
majority of the members of the cultural and political elite? We tackle this
question, and seek to show that it was Cao Cao’s approach, rather than the
views of Ying Shao, which resonated with elite practices of adoption: not
only the patrilineal clan, but also members of the extended kinship group
could be chosen to continue the line of ancestral sacrifices. Such a practice,
moreover, received a surprising degree of legal and social sanction.
Before dealing with specifics, we must recognize that silence is not the
only challenge presented by the sources, for in almost half our cases we are
not told whether an adoption involved someone of a different surname.
Although there are no details of the process, we must believe that true
adoption, particularly where maintenance of a lineage and service to the
ancestors was involved, entailed some form of introduction in the family
temple or tomb, and a putative endorsement by the spirits who were to
receive the sacrifices of the newcomer. This in part is due to the fact that
the chroniclers generally did not record the origins of the adopted children
of various court figures, and this in turn reflects the fact that adoptions
were largely private affairs. Certainly, a Han adoption must have involved
some kind of official notification; a son would have to be removed from
the rolls of one household register and reassigned to another.43 And there
is reason to suspect that the adopted son would have been introduced to
the ancestors in the family temple or tomb (as in the case of the unfortu-
nate Zhou Ba).44 At the same time, the process by which an adoption took
42)
Ying Shao died about 200.
43)
For Western Han statutes on registering individuals, see Zhangjiashan ersiqi hao Hanmu
zhujian zhengli xiaozu, Zhangjiashan Hanmu zhujian, “Zouyanshu”: 218-19. For the state
of registration records in the Eastern Han dynasty, see Hans Bielenstein, “The Census of
China during the Period 2-742 A.D.” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 19
(1947): 125-163.
44)
We are told in the histories how each new emperor was presented and paid his respects
at the imperial ancestral temples soon after his accession. Emperor Huan, for example, was
placed on the throne on 1 August 146, and visited the temples on 21 September, and
Emperor Ling was brought to the throne on 17 February 168 and attended the temples on
18 and 19 March 7. These state ceremonies legitimized the ruler before the spirits of his
predecessors, and similar rituals on a less splendid scale performed the same function for
the successors of a royal house and for the sons, natural or adopted, of commoners. See
place was surely less public than in Rome, where adoptions were not only
registered with the authorities but also had to be officially approved.
Because of the paucity of documentation, however, we cannot be sure
what percentage of adoptions was made within the patriline in Han times.
In contrast to the situation of late imperial China, where genealogical
information is precise,45 the numbers for Han are too small to allow us to
draw firm conclusions. Of forty cases that are known, eleven are identified
as adoptions within the patriline, in eight others the adoption introduced
members of the maternal and distaff clan, and in three cases the adopter
and adoptee appear to have had no previous kinship or marital tie.46
Bearing in mind, then, the limitations of our sources, we turn to the
main question: what evidence is there that different-surname adoptions
were officially discouraged during the Han? In contrast to Cao Cao’s pro-
clamation, which affected people far lower down in the social and political
hierarchy, there are no specific policies of Western Han which say anything
about ancestral sacrifices for commoners or even regular officials.47 Howe-
ver, in the Juyan 居延 strips of the first century BCE and the first century
CE we find some potential evidence for state-sanctioned inheritance
between people of different surnames. One strip says that: “All the children
of siblings may serve as the heir [of the deceased]” ([. . .] tongchanzi jie de
yiwei si [. . .] 同產子皆得以為嗣);48 and the phrase tongchan can refer to
sisters as well as brothers.49 So nephews of a different surname could be
heirs. It is true that the remarks are fragmentary, and the larger context of
the strips is missing, but it does appear that they were intended to provide
guidelines to officials in deciding matters of inheritance.
Hans Bielenstein, “Lo-yang in Later Han Times.” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern
Antiquities 48 (1976): 1-142; 55.
45)
For examples of the level of detail in the genealogies from the twentieth century, which
includes the names of adopted children in different-colored ink, see Wolf and Huang, Mar-
riage and Adoption: 108.
46)
For adoptions within the patriline, see Table, cases no. 1, 6, 7, 15, 19, 28, 30, 32, 33,
34, 37. For adoptions that involved distaff and maternal relatives, see cases nos. 3, 8, 9, 11,
12, 21, 22, 38. For cases where the adoptee was not a relation, see nos. 13, 17, 29.
47)
Moriya Mitsuo 守屋美都雄, Chûgoku kodai no kazoku to kokka 中国古代の家族と国家
(Kyôto: Kyôto daigaku bungakubunai Tôyôshi kenkyûkai, 1968): 336-39.
48)
Gansusheng wenwukaogu yanjiusuo 甘肅省文物考古研究所 et al., Juyan xinjian: Jiaqu
houguan yu disi sui 居延新簡: 甲渠候官與第四燧 (Beijing: Wenwu, 1990): 45 [EPT5.32].
49)
For female siblings (nü tongchan 女同產) and male siblings (nan tongchan 男同產), see
Zhangjiashan: 183; for punishments involving sex between siblings (tongchan): 157.
The following examples give a general impression of the parameters of

different-surname adoptions in Han times. We begin with Liu Feng 劉封
(d. 220), who was originally a son of the Kou 寇 family. The Kou had held
a county fief in Changsha and were related by marriage to the Liu clan of
that commandery. In 201 the condottiere Liu Bei 劉備 (161-223), future
founder of the Three Kingdom State of Shu-Han, who was originally from
Zhuo commandery in the far north, took refuge in Jing province. He had
at that time no son of his own, so he adopted a boy of the Kou family, who
was then ten years old and was known thereafter as Liu Feng. The adoption
was maintained even after Liu Bei had fathered a son of his own, Liu Shan
劉禪, in 207.50
A second case confirms that members of the literate elite could adopt
maternal kinsmen as their heirs. In 193 the military officer Zhu Zhi 朱
祇/秪 of Danyang commandery, who had held local rank at the county
and provincial level and had been recommended as a commissioned offi-
cial, adopted his sister’s son Ran 然 as his heir; the boy was at that time
aged thirteen. Ran’s mother had married into the Shi 施 family, and he had
been brought up in that lineage. Though Zhu Zhi was childless at the time
of the adoption, he later had four sons of his own, and when he died in
234 his eldest natural son inherited his fief. Zhu Ran himself had a distin-
guished career and became a senior officer of the Three Kingdoms state of
Wu, but when he asked to return to his own surname after his adoptive
father’s death, the ruler Sun Quan 孫權 (182-252) refused permission. The
surname passed down to Zhu Ran’s son Zhu Ji 朱績, but in the time of Sun
Quan’s successor Sun Liang 孫亮 (reg. 252-258), a second petition was
approved and Zhu Ji was able to revert to the Shi surname.51
It appears to have been the eunuchs of the imperial palace, however,
who were the most energetic followers of the practice, and they may indeed
have instigated it. According to the Hou Han shu 後漢書 compiled by Fan
Ye 范曄 in the early fifth century, from the middle of the second century
CE the eunuchs passed on their titles and estates to men of different
surnames: they “adopted distant relatives, some even naming those of dif-
ferent surnames as their successors, or purchased slaves to be their sons,
and all were allowed to inherit their fiefs.”52 Such adopted sons were referred
50)
SGZ: Shu: 10.991; the adoption is described as yang Feng weizi 養封爲子.
51)
SGZ: Wu: 11.1305 and 1309; the adoption is described as yi wei si 以爲嗣.
52)
Fan Ye 范曄, Hou Hanshu 後漢書 [hereafter HHS] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984):
78/68.2521. For similar observations, see Huang Jinshan, “Handai jiating”: 41; Ochi,
“Gi-shin ni okeru ‘Ishi no ka’ ni tsuite”: 3.
to as “nourished sons” (yangzi). In contrast to late imperial times, when the

term referred to foster children, in Han times, such a nourished son could
become an heir (hou; sizi), for he changed his surname, inherited the rank
of his adopted father, and performed ancestral sacrifices.53
The Cao family itself provides an example of a different-surname adop-
tion by a eunuch, for it appears that the powerful eunuch Cao Teng 曹騰
(d. 150 CE) adopted relatives linked by marriage. Certainly, there is some
dispute on the matter: Chen Shou of the third century, author of the San-
guo zhi 三國志, claims that nothing was known about the origins of Cao
Cao’s father, Cao Song 曹嵩 (d. 193), aside from the fact that he had been
adopted by Cao Teng. Other sources, however, suggest that his background
was not so obscure. Pei Songzhi 裴松之 (372-451), compiler of the great
commentary to Chen Shou’s work, quotes the anonymous “Biography of
Cao Man” (Cao Man zhuan 曹瞞傳) of the third century and “Tales of the
Generations of Wei and Jin” (Wei-Jin shiyu 魏晉世語) by Guo Ban 郭頒 of
the early fourth century, both of which claim that Cao Song was originally
a member of the Xiahou 夏侯 clan.54 Pei further notes that Cao Song was
a younger brother of the father of Xiahou Dun 夏侯惇 (d. 220), and indeed
our suspicions of a close connection between the clans are confirmed by
the fact that Chen Shou himself intermingles the biographies of members
of the Cao and Xiahou families. The discovery of a set of Cao-family tombs
in the mid-1970s and attending stelae lends further credence to old tales
of a long-established marriage connection.55
53)
For distinctions registered through vocabulary, see Waltner, Adopting an Heir: 52-53;
91; cf. Wolf, Marriage and Adoption: 108-117.
54)
SGZ: 1.2 n. 3 says that Cao Man zhuan was compiled by a subject of Wu, rival to the
state of Wei founded by Cao Cao, presumably during third century. SGZ: 1.1 n. 1 quotes
the work as saying that Cao Cao had a childhood name of A’man 阿瞞; the title sought to
denigrate him by a show of familiarity. Guo Ban 郭頒, though not so specifically inspired,
appears also to have been generally hostile to the Cao.
Chapter 9 of Sanguo zhi contains biographies of both Cao and Xiahou family members.
55)
The tombs are described in Anhuisheng Haoxian bowuguan 安徽省毫縣博物館,
“Haoxian Cao Cao zongzu muzang 毫縣曹操宗族墓葬.” Wenwu 1978/8: 32-45 and Tian
Changwu 田昌五, “Du Cao Cao zongzu muzang zhuanke keci 讀曹操宗族墓葬磚刻辭.”
Wenwu 文物 1978/8: 46-50; the latter cites the inscriptions describing the connection to
the Xiahou clan at 48 and 49. The previous debate is well summarized by Carl Leban,
though his conclusion that the Cao had no connection with the Xiahou is disproven by the
tomb inscriptions, excavated after he wrote. See Carl Leban, “Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of
Wei: the Early Years.” PhD. Dissertation, Columbia University, New York 1971: 48-52.
We may now raise the question as to just how controversial the practice
really was. Certainly it is tempting to take the word of a contemporary,
Ying Shao, yet the fragments of an essay by Wu Shang 吳尚, “Different
Surnames Serving as Heirs” (Yixing weihou yi 異姓為後議), provide contrary
evidence. (Aside from this essay, little else is known of Wu, except that he
is said to have lived during the Eastern Han). Wu lays out the mourning
obligations to the original parents of sons who had been adopted out, and
at first glance he appears to agree with Ying Shao. He pays lip service to the
idea that same-surname adoptions were optimal in cases where a man
lacked a son, “To say that the spirits did not enjoy the offerings of those of
a different clan makes it clear that the spirits only respond to the sacrifices
of those of the same surname.” He says nothing more on the matter, howe-
ver, and treats it in only a perfunctory manner before getting to his main
issue. Though he did not believe that adoption required a complete break
from the original family, he nonetheless regarded a man who had been
adopted out of the family as having a status similar to that of a “married
daughter.” As such, he should wear the mourning of a daughter—that is,
the mourning of a “son but decreased by one degree,” and the children of
the adopted man should follow their parents in observing a lighter mour-
ning.56 By the fact that he put forward these protocols, Wu tacitly ack-
nowledged the legitimacy of establishing different surnames as heirs. In
effect, therefore, the practice was not seen as a deviant behavior that should
be concealed or condemned. If anything, different-surname adoptions,
like ordinary marriages, could be readily reconciled with the mourning
system as found in the classics.57
In fact, the prevalence of cross-cousin marriages may have made different-
surname adoptions of affines and maternal relatives palatable. As Hinsch
shows, Han dynasty emperors were especially close to their jiu 舅, that is,
their fathers-in-law or maternal uncles. The ambiguity of the term is no
accident, for elite men routinely married their cousins, so maternal uncles
were often also fathers-in-law. The adoption of a member of one’s affinal or
For other works that posit a Xiahou connection, see Ochi, “Gi-shin ni okeru ‘Ishi no ka’
ni tsuite”: 13.
56)
For a recent discussion of the mourning circle in Han times, with a particular emphasis
on the role of daughters, see Guolong Lai, “The Diagram of the Mourning System from
Mawangdui.” Early China 28 (2003): 45-99.
57)
Du You, Tongdian 69.1914; cf. Huang, “Handai jiating”: 42. Also see Waltner, Getting
an Heir: 72-81. She argues that the classics provided sufficient leeway to justify behavior
that might otherwise have been prohibited.
maternal clan was thus likely to be a close blood relative.58 In addition, he

was a member of a clan that was linked by the exchange of women—some-
thing Wu Shang hints at when he connects the mourning obligations of a
son adopted by a different surname and a daughter who had been married
out. In many ways, one can see the different-surname adoption as the
reverse of normal patterns of marriage—instead of “sending off ” a daugh-
ter, one was “sending off ” a son, but to the very family that had once
provided a daughter. Such adoptions thus completed the cycle of exchanges
through the circulation of young males.
Of course, one might wonder whether different-surname adoptions
were as permanent as those of the same surname, for we have seen how
some men adopted by other clans later reverted to their original surnames
and cancelled the relationship. We must note, however, that different-sur-
name adoptions appear to have been legally binding and could be difficult
to reverse. Zhu Ran, for example, mentioned above, was not permitted to
return to his original surname, and it was only a second attempt by his son
that proved successful. Though it was eventually ended, the adoption had
been maintained for more than sixty years, from 193 to 255.
Another case was that of Sun He 孫河 (d. 204 CE), who was adopted by
his maternal Yu 俞 clan. He became the commander of the bodyguard of
his kinsman the general Sun Jian 孫堅 (d.191), and later joined Sun Jian’s
son Sun Ce 孫策 (175-200), who succeeded his father as head of the family
and founded the warlord state which became the empire of Wu under his
brother Sun Quan. In recognition of his service, Sun Ce allowed him
to resume the family surname; but we note again that this required special
permission.59
Same-surname adoptions, moreover, were not necessarily more perma-
nent than those of different surnames: both could be subject to challenges
and reversals. One case relates to the transfer (chu 出) of Yuan Shao 袁紹
(d. 202 CE) to become the heir of his uncle Yuan Cheng 袁成. The Yuan
clan was among the most celebrated and respected of the empire, with no
less than four members rising to the position of Excellency, highest in the
imperial civil service. In many ways, the adoption of Yuan Shao would
seem unassailable, given that Yuan Shao was a close kinsman in the male
line and of the right generation, but Yuan Shao’s cousin and rival, Yuan
58)
Bret Hinsch, “The Origins of Han-Dynasty Consort Kin Power.” East Asian History
25/26 (2003): 1-24; 12-15.
59)
SGZ: Wu 6.1214: the adoption is described as chu hou gu Yushi 岀後姑俞氏.
Shu 袁術 (d. 199), attacked Yuan Shao’s legitimacy. Yuan Shu was a son of
Yuan Feng by his formal wife, and it is likely that Yuan Shao was his half-
brother, probably the son of a concubine. It appears that Yuan Shu resented
Yuan Shao’s transfer to a senior lineage, and when the two men became
political rivals he referred to him on various occasions as “our family slave”
(wujia nu 吾家奴) and insisted that he “was not a true member of the Yuan
clan” (fei Yuanshi zi 非袁氏子).60
A stele erected in 178 on behalf of a woman in present-day Sichuan
provides further evidence that intra-clan transfers, like different-surname
adoptions, could be reversed. Though the text of the stele is fragmentary,
we may make out the following facts. A minor official Jin Yuan 金援, living
in his native commandery of Ba 巴, married a woman of the Xu 徐 family
and gave birth to a son, Jin Gong 金恭, who died in the 150s. Jin Yuan
then adopted a great-grand-nephew, Jin Guangyan 廣延, as his heir. Guang-
yan, who followed his adopted father in holding minor office, married
another woman of the Xu clan but died while still in his twenties. Based
on the fragmentary text, the Song antiquarian Hong Kuo 洪适 (1117-
1184) inferred that the couple had children (an assessment that would
make sense, given the young widow’s decision not to remarry). Jin Yuan,
however, had also sired another son, Jin Yongzhi 金雍直, born to a concu-
bine. The dates are unclear, but we may assume that Jin Yongzhi was born
after the adoption of Jin Guangyan. The relationship between Jin Yuan
and his natural son Yongzhi was not easy; the text of the stele explains that
the animus resulted in a division of property during Jin Yuan’s lifetime. Jin
Guangyan died before his father, and after Jin Yuan’s death Jin Yongzhi
took full control of his father’s estate, disenfranchising the widow and chil-
dren of his adopted brother.61 The situation upset the elder Lady Xu, who
set up a stele to tell her side of the story—and presumably to protect her
favorite party in the event of a lawsuit.
The case of the Jins reveals that the status of an adopted son, even one
selected from a collateral male lineage, was not necessarily equivalent to
that of a natural son, and it was always open to dispute. The Lady Xu insis-
ted that Jin Guangyan was her true son—she even referred to herself as
60)
HHS: 75/65.2439.
61)
Hong Kuo 洪适 [ed.], Lishi 隸釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983): 15.10b-11b,
followed by discussion at 11b-13a. Some parts of the text are uncertain, but the essential
account is clear. For a previous discussion of this case, see Moriya, Chûgoku kodai kazoku to
kokka: 324; Hinsch, “Women, Kinship, and Property”: 19-20.
“Mother of Jin Guangyan” at the head of the stele—but the position of the
adopted son was far from secure. Had it been, we would have expected the
patrimony to have been split between the two parties, Yongzhi and the
family of Guangyan. Yet Yongzhi was able to take control of all the pro-
perty, canceling the rights of his cousin and adopted brother, and the
claims of his widow and children, and ignoring the wishes of the Lady Xu,
his formal mother. It appears, therefore, that such nominal descendants
could be disinherited with comparative ease.
In many ways, the situation during the Han is a contrast to that of middle-
period and late imperial China. From the third century of our era, different-
surname adoptions became illegal. As Ch’ü points out, a number of
prohibitions were issued in the Three Kingdoms period: Shu-Han made it
illegal for a person to be adopted from an outside lineage, and the Jin
dynasty (265-420) also outlawed the practice. Though they appear to have
had limited effect, these prohibitions set the pattern for subsequent
history.62 No such legal restraints however appear to have existed during
Han. On the contrary, such arrangements were found among the leaders
of the age—high-ranking officials and even imperial contenders. Equally
important, such arrangements were regarded as quite consistent with good
ritual order. Far from representing deviations or subversions of time-honored
principles, they had an air of respectability.
Why Adopt?
With the first two of our questions thus answered, we may now ask why
people in Han China carried out adoptions. Were they merely for the sake
of maintaining the patriline? Admittedly, most of the cases examined above
were made for that purpose. Frequently, a man who lacked an heir would
initiate the adoption of a paternal or maternal relative, but in some ins-
tances the adoption was initiated posthumously by a widow or some other
relative. For example, Deng Chang 鄧閶, brother of the powerful Empress-
Dowager Deng Sui 鄧綏, died in 118 CE, and after the death of the Dowager
in 121 her kinsmen were disgraced by the vengeful Emperor An 安
(reg. 106-125). Many members of the family, including Deng Chang’s son
Deng Zhong 鄧忠 and the Dowager’s cousin Deng Bao 鄧豹, were driven
62)
For the Three Kingdoms and Jin period, see Ch’ü, Han Social Structure: 19-20. For later
periods, see Waltner, Getting an Heir: 79, 94-99. For evidence of the limited success of
these early prohibitions, see Tongdian: 69.1907-16.
to suicide. Deng Zhong had been the only son of Deng Chang, and so the
Lady Geng 耿, widow of Deng Chang, adopted Deng Bao’s son Deng
Si 鄧嗣 as heir to the lineage.63 Similarly, Cao Cong 曹琮, son of Cao Ju
曹據, was adopted to maintain the succession of his deceased uncle Cao
Chong 曹沖, a brother of Cao Ju.64 The cases of both the Dengs and the
Caos fit within the framework of adoption familiar to historians of China.
As with adoptions initiated by men who lacked natural sons, they point
to adoptions made for the purpose of securing an heir and continuing
the patriline. Questions, however, arise as to whether there were other
reasons for incorporating an outsider into the family in the Han. After all,
such a phenomenon has been observed in other places and times; histo-
rians of the Roman world have noticed that adoptions were sometimes
conducted for reasons that had little to do with the continuity of the patri-
line.65 During the second century CE, for example, the emperors passed
on their throne by adopting a worthy successor: Nerva (reg. 96-98) adop-
ted Trajan (98-117), who adopted Hadrian (117-138), who adopted Anto-
ninus (138-161) who adopted Marcus Aurelius (161-180). None of these
men were related—adoption was simply a method of transferring power,
and, as will be shown below, adoptions in Han China could likewise be
used to build and cement political alliances. This kind of adoption, we
argue, represented an extension of elite marriage alliances and patron-
client relations.66
The skeptic will no doubt ask how one can judge that adoptions were
made for the purpose of forming an alliance. It is true that the vocabulary
does not provide indications of intention. In some cases, the chroniclers
are vague about the level of formality of the arrangement; those being
adopted were referred to as virtual sons or daughters—one party would
“recognize” (ren) or “regard” (wei 為) someone as a son or daughter.67 In
other cases, the arrangement was described as “taking in” (shou) and “nou-
rishing” ( yang); these are the same terms used by early writers to refer to
sons brought into the family for the purpose of maintaining the ancestral
63)
HHS: 16/6.618: the term used here for adoption is yang 養.
64)
SGZ: Wei: 20.580: feng Chong hou 奉沖後.
65)
Adolf Berger and Barry Nicholas, “Adoptio.” In The Oxford Classical Dictionary, eds.
N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970): 8-9.
66)
For a classic formulation of the patron-client relationship, see Patricia Ebrey, “Patron-
Client Relations in the Later Han.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.3 (1983):
533-42.
67)
For examples of ren/wei, see HHS: 34/24.1186; HHS 69/59.2244-45.
sacrifices.68 In this, Han and early middle-period chroniclers differed from

their successors in late imperial and modern China.69
Though they may not be identified by the terminology, alliances made
through adoption can often be inferred from their context. Consider the
case of Gongsun Du 公孫度 (d. 204), who was taken into the care of the
Administrator of Xuantu, a certain Gongsun Yu 公孫琙. Gongsun Du’s
biography in Sanguo zhi tells us that he was the son of Gongsun Yan 公孫延,
but the shared surname does not necessarily indicate a close relationship.
Gongsun Yan was a migrant from Liaodong who worked as a junior officer
in Gongsun Yu’s commandery office in Xuantu; and it is most unlikely that
Gongsun Du would have been appointed as head of a commandery in his
native province: he probably came from somewhere in central China.
Gongsun Yu’s son Bao 豹 had just died, however, and Gongsun Yan’s son
had been given the same childhood name [Bao: “wild-cat”] and was the
same age as the dead boy. The Administrator therefore treated the young
man “as a kinsman and with affection,” arranging for his education and
marriage as if he were a son. We may doubt, however, that this was a true
adoption, for Gongsun Yu later nominated Gongsun Du for commissio-
ned office:70 fathers were not entitled to nominate their sons. In effect,
though he showed every sign of paternal love and affection, Gongsun Yu
was the political patron of Gongsun Du rather than his adoptive father.
In similar fashion, there could be quasi-adoptions with varying degrees
of formality, and with no requirement for such a permanent transforma-
tion of identity as a change of surname. The case of Hu Teng 胡騰 provides
an example. When the powerful Dou family was destroyed by a coup of
palace eunuchs in 168, the leader of the clan, Dou Wu 竇武, was killed,
with many of his kinfolk. Dou Wu’s client Hu Teng, however, managed to
rescue his grandson Dou Fu 竇輔 (167-211). Escaping to the south, he
raised Dou Fu, “treating him as his own son.” Upon reaching maturity,
however, Dou Fu retained his original surname and married Hu Teng’s
daughter; it is most unlikely that he or his benefactors saw the adoption as
real or permanent.71
In other cases, however, the adoption was formal, as the adoptee took
on the surname of the elder party. Sanguo zhi says that Cao Zhen 曹真
68)
For an example of shouyang being used for such an adoption, see SGZ: Wei: 9.280.
69)
Waltner, Adopting an Heir: 52-53; 91; cf. Wolf, Marriage and Adoption: 108-117.
70)
SGZ: 8.252.
71)
HHS: 69/59.2244-45.
(d. 231 BCE) was a son of Qin Shao 秦召/邵 of Pei 沛. Like the Xiahou
clan mentioned above, the Qin were connected to the Cao through the
female line, and in 190 Qin Shao raised troops in support of Cao Cao. He
died in battle soon afterwards, and Cao Cao adopted his son Zhen into his
own lineage. The adoption appears formal, since the boy adopted the Cao
surname, but there was no intention of seeking someone to maintain the
ancestral sacrifices: Cao Cao already had sons of his own and did not need
an heir. Instead, the decision to “take in and raise” Qin Shao’s son was a
means to reward a faithful ally and to strengthen the existing bonds bet-
ween the two clans.72
As with marriage alliances, therefore, adoptions were not necessarily
permanent. The fate of the tyrant Dong Zhuo provides a prime example of
a political alliance that aspired to be more than a fleeting affair but none-
theless collapsed. After seizing power at the capital in 189, Dong Zhuo
entered into a close relationship with the much younger Lü Bu 呂布
(d. 198), and the pair swore an oath as father and son (shi wei fuzi 誓為父子).
Later, however, after Lü Bu began a furtive affair with a slave girl owned by
Dong Zhuo, he became afraid of discovery and of the consequences of
falling out with his patron. Soon afterwards the senior minister Wang Yun
王允 (137-192) sought his assistance in an assassination plot. Lü Bu was
reluctant to kill his foster father, explaining the oath, but Wang Yun remin-
ded him that he did not have the same surname as Dong Zhuo, and was
not his “flesh and bone (gurou 骨肉).” In other words, the oath could be
undone. Thus persuaded, Lü Bu joined the conspiracy and killed Dong
Zhuo in a most grisly fashion.73
The story has several points of interest. Here, the arrangement did not
involve a permanent change on the part of Lü Bu, for he retained his sur-
name. Indeed this is not surprising, for we know that Dong Zhuo had a
son. Nor is there any likelihood of a family connection: the two men came
from different commanderies, so it is doubtful they were related on the
maternal side; and Wang Yun observed that Dong and Lü were not “flesh
and bone.” Finally, the relationship, like most political alliances, appears to
have been fragile; it did not require much to undo the oath. As Chen
Shou’s account reveals, the charms of a slave girl and a little persuasion
were sufficient to turn a trusted son into a fierce enemy!
72)
SGZ: Wei: 9.280.
73)
SGZ: Wei: 7.220.
So far our discussion has focused on the adoption of men, but women
were also involved, for they played an important role in the Han political
arena. Like everyone else, eunuchs apparently sought to make alliances by
adopting women, who could be given away in marriage to allies. The
dynastic history tells of the powerful court eunuch, Cao Jie 曹節 (d. 181).
In addition to a son, Cao Jie adopted a girl, and some time in the 170s she
was given in marriage to Feng Fang 馮方/芳. Feng Fang became a member
of the Secretariat and was later a minister, so he gained considerably from
the association.74 About the same time the adopted daughter of the eunuch
Cheng Huang 程璜 (fl. 180) was a secondary wife (xiaoqi 小妻) of the
censorial official Yang Qiu 陽球 (d. 179). Yang Qiu had been an ally of
Cheng Huang and his faction, but when he turned against the eunuchs his
wife betrayed his plans to her father and Yang Qiu was executed. The Lady
Cheng later became a close associate of Emperor Ling.75 Both women served
as a link between their adopted fathers and their fathers’ allies.76
The political use or abuse of adoption can be seen most clearly in a failed
case—that involving the Lady Mengnü 猛女 and Liang Ji 梁冀, powerful
brother-in-law of Emperor Huan. In 159 Liang Ji’s sister Nüying 女塋,
empress consort of Emperor Huan, died, and Liang Ji’s position at the
head of the court and government was threatened. The Lady Mengnü, a
protégée of Liang Ji’s wife Sun Shou 孫壽, had become the emperor’s
favourite concubine, and Emperor Huan intended to appoint her as his
consort. Liang Ji decided to adopt Mengnü as his daughter in order to
maintain his power. He found justifications: The lady’s natural father, a
man of the Deng 鄧 family, which had formerly been powerful but had
fallen into disgrace, had died when she was a small child, and her mother
remarried a certain Liang Gi 梁紀. Liang Gi was not of the same lineage as
Liang Ji, but he was a relation of Liang Ji’s wife the Lady Sun Shou, and so
Liang Ji could claim kinship. For the adoption to be carried out, it was
planned that Mengnü would first take the surname of her step-father: the
two would then be considered members of the same lineage and Liang Ji
would then recognize (ren) Mengnü as his daughter. The plan failed, however,
74)
HHS: 37/27.1261; 67/57.2209.
75)
HHS: 56/46.1834; 81/71.2695; 52/42.1731-32.
76)
It is also said that during the 160s a daughter of the eunuch Tang Heng was rejected by
the gentleman Fu Gongming 傅公明, but was then married to the infant Xun Yu 荀彧, as
Xun Yu’s father Kun 緄 was overawed by the power of the eunuchs: HHS: 70/60.2281,
SGZ: 10.309. The Xun, however, were a notable and well-respected Confucian family, so
there are some doubts about this story.
when Mengnü’s natural mother and her relatives realized how much they
could lose and refused their consent. Liang Ji attempted to kill the lady’s
mother, but the plot miscarried, and Emperor Huan, aided by his palace
eunuchs, destroyed Liang Ji and his party.77
The fact that leading clans of Eastern Han used adoption to cement
political alliances should not be surprising. After all, these same families,
like political elites everywhere, contracted marriage alliances for the pur-
pose of providing stability to what were often fluid and fragile bonds.
Indeed, we have seen how adoption was closely associated with the notion
of marriage, for it involved transactions between clans; and an adoption
can even be seen as a marriage-in-reverse. The outflow of women was being
offset by the movement of men from the clan that had provided grooms.
Furthermore, the habit of constructing kinship relations was nothing new
to the Han political elite. As Hinsch argues, the Zhou 周 kings and the
great houses of the Spring and Autumn period (771-453 BCE) made
efforts to order relations with other states by constructing bonds of kins-
hip. One state would be known as an “uncle state,” while others were
“nephew states” (either of the maternal or paternal variety). Such fictive
ties, Hinsch adds, were more than idle flights of fancy, but represent efforts
to encourage more cordial relations between states.78
Conclusion and Discussion

The evidence we have presented shows that adoptions in the Han dynasty
were diverse and varied, and that there were different ideas about who could
or should be adopted, and about the purposes adoptions should serve. Opi-
nions were divided, indeed, about whether adoptions were necessary at all.
Our discussion also indicates the short-comings of approaches that inter-
pret departures from later orthodoxy as “deviations” from social rules at
that time. The decision not to adopt was hardly irregular in the Han period:
analysis of various statutes and legal cases shows that property and rank
77)
HHS: 34/24.1186; Rafe de Crespigny, Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling: being the
chronicle of the Later Han dynasty for the years 157 to 189 AD as recorded in chapters 54 to 59
of the Zizhi tongjian of Sima Guang (Canberra, Australia: Faculty of Asian Studies, Australia
National University, 1989): 11-13. The two characters 冀 and 紀 are both rendered Ji in
modern Pinyin; we use the variant transcription Gi to distinguish the step-father of the
Lady Mengnü.
78)
Hinsch, “The Origins of Han-Dynasty Consort Kin Power”: 15-17.
could be passed to siblings, parents, wives or female children. The practice

of adopting individuals of a different surname, moreover, was not just
tolerated as a necessary evil: it was openly practiced by powerful officials,
and received ritual and official sanction.
This liberal attitude towards adoption among the Han elite deserves
attention, for it stands in contrast with the situation in late imperial China.
Ann Waltner, for example, has shown that the realities of adoption in the
Ming period were far more complex than either classical or legal prescrip-
tions would suggest.79 People adopted individuals related through the
maternal line during all the late imperial period, particularly when suitable
agnates were not available,80 and though the statutes prohibited different-
surname adoptions, the state rarely punished offenders.81 Nevertheless,
Waltner’s discussion reveals the extent to which these arrangements had to
be concealed or rationalized by contemporaries, for such adoptions were
regarded as unorthodox and illegitimate. There was, in her words, a “vehe-
mence of sentiment”—disclosing the existence of a set of well-articulated
social rules that were acknowledged and understood by leading members
of society.82
Similarly, in his study of adoption in contemporary Hong Kong, James
L. Watson has moved beyond written articulations of the rules of adop-
tion. According to him, communities tended to prefer close agnates as
candidates for adoption, particularly fraternal nephews; and when no such
candidates were available, these communities tended to look outside the
lineage group for individuals with no blood tie to the parties initiating the
adoption. Such a move—which would seem to be in violation of time-
honored principles of adoption—should nonetheless not be misunders-
tood as random deviations from the letter of ritual “law” but rather as
reflecting the existence of rules which were once part of an oral tradition.
Albeit unwritten, such rules were still rules. “Any transgression of these
accepted modes of behavior,” he writes, “can be interpreted by the mem-
bership as a threat to the prestige of the entire group.”83
How do we explain the comparative liberality of the Han practice of
adoption—in other words, the absence of a strong sense of social rules in
79)
Waltner, Getting an Heir: 145.
80)
Waltner, Getting an Heir: 94-99.
81)
Waltner, Getting an Heir: 79.
82)
Waltner, Getting an Heir: 6, 71.
83)
Watson, “Agnates and Outsiders”: 296.
that regard? This is a difficult question, and one that lies strictly outside the
modest scope of the present paper. Difficulties notwithstanding, we believe
it is worth reviewing, in conclusion, a number of possible explanations so
as to suggest directions for further research.
Certainly, differences of class, circumstances, and personal preference
contributed to the diversity of adoption practices. In addition, geographi-
cal diversity—a point of emphasis in recent scholarship—may explain the
heterogeneity of Han adoption practices. The study by Arthur Wolf and
Huang Chieh-shan offers another possible explanation. In their account of
marriage and adoption practices in Taiwan and South China between 1845
and 1945, they have revealed the extent to which social norms could
vary—in particular, prohibitions against uxorilocal marriage, itself a form
of adoption. In some villages, such prohibitions were strong; in others, the
marriage customs were liberal.84 Wolf and Huang explain the variations by
reference to the strength of social institutions such as lineages. In places
where lineage organizations were strong, such as the New Territories of
Hong Kong, adoption practices tended to be “strictly conservative”—in
other words, uxorilocal marriages were infrequent because the patrilineal
descent group was “strong enough to interfere in the affairs of the family
and impose rules that serve its members’ interests.”85 By contrast, in places
where lineage organizations were weak or where upheaval had disrupted
social organization, adoption practices were liberal.
Indeed, it is not hard to imagine a connection between the lack of strong
patrilineal social institutions and the liberality of Han practices of adop-
tion. After all, the emergence of lineages—a “corporate group which cele-
brates ritual unity and is based on demonstrated descent from a common
ancestor”—was a relatively late development in Chinese history. As many
historians have noted, far from representing an essential characteristic of
Chinese society, the corporate lineage reflected a number of historical
factors—including the Song discovery of Zhou classical norms, the revival
of what Patricia Ebrey has called zong 宗 orientation, and the adoption of
the philosophy of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) as state orthodoxy under
Mongol rule in 1313.86 Such a development also owed something to the
84)
Wolf and Huang, Marriage and Adoption: v-vi; 1.
85)
Wolf and Huang, Marriage and Adoption: 214-15.
86)
For the zong revival, see Patricia Ebrey, “Conceptions of the Family in the Sung Dynasty.”
Journal of Asian Studies 43.2 (1984): 219-243; “The Early Stages in the Development of
Descent Group Organization.” In Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-
1940, eds. Patricia Ebrey and James L. Watson (Berkeley: University of California Press,
imperial court’s endorsement for such organizations, which the court saw
as useful for maintaining social order and stability.87 But all this had yet to
happen in the Han. The contradictions, as Bettine Birge writes, between
classical ideals of patrilineality and law had to wait a millennium before
being reconciled. And the reforms over several centuries in the “name of a
return to ancient values” had yet to reconnect property with the patriline
and its agnatic rituals. It would take an alliance between the Mongol
conquerors and a handful of utopian traditionalists before the legacies of
the Han could be effaced.88
1986): 16-61; “The Liturgies for Sacrifices to Ancestors in Successive Versions of the Family
Rituals.” In Ritual and Scripture in Chinese Popular Religion: Five Studies, ed. David John-
son (New Haven: Chinese Popular Culture Press, 1995): 104-136; Confucianism and Fam-
ily Rituals in Imperial China: A Social History of Writing about Rites (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1991). Also see Birge, Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction: 148;
197.
87)
See John H. Dardess, “The Cheng Communal Family: Social Organization and Neo-
Confucianism in Yuan and Early Ming China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 34
(1974): 7-52.
88)
Birge, Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction: 1, 266, 284-85; 287.
Table: Records of Adoption
Adoptee Adopter Initiator1 Date Relationship Original Surname Adoption Terminology Source
[*indicates surname changed? reversed?
a woman]
1. Cao Cong Cao Chong 217 paternal uncle same – 奉沖後 SGZ: Wei 20.580
曹琮曹沖
2. Cao Rui Empress Guo woman c. 221 same – 養 SGZ: Wei: 3.91
曹叡郭
3. Cao Song Cao Teng 曹騰 eunuch affinal different yes 養子 SGZ: Wei 1.1
曹嵩
4. Cao 曹 X Cao Jie 曹節 eunuch unknown HHS: 37/27.1262
5. Cao 曹 X* Cao Jie 曹節 eunuch unknown 養子 HHS: 78/68.2527
6. Cao Yi Cao Xuan 221 agnate same – 紹玹後 SGZ: Wei: 20.585
曹壹曹玹
7. Cao Zan Cao Xuan 215 agnate same – 襲玹爵邑 SGZ: Wei 20.584
曹贊曹玹
8. Cao Zhen Cao Cao 曹操 maternal different yes 收養 SGZ: Wei 9.280
曹真 relative
9. Chen Jiao uncertain maternal different yes 岀嗣舅氏 SGZ: Wei: 22.644
陳矯 relative
10. Cheng 程 X* Cheng Huang eunuch unknown HHS: 56/46.1834,
程璜 81/71.2695,
52/42.1731-32
259
11. Deng Liang Ji 梁冀 159 affinal different yes 認…爲其女 HHS: 34/24.1186
Mengnü
鄧猛女*
Table: Records of Adoption (cont.)
260
a woman]
12. Deng Si Lady Geng 耿 woman 121 affinal same – 養 HHS: 16/6.618
鄧嗣
13. Dou Fu Hu Teng 胡騰 c.168 none different no HHS: 69/59.2244-
竇輔 45
14. Fan 樊 X Fan An 樊安 eunuch unknown – 嗣子 Li shi 6:21a-23a
15. Fu Gong Fu An 伏黯 30s paternal uncle same – 以恭爲後 HHS: 79/69B.2571
伏恭
16. Gao Jin Gao Wang eunuch unknown HHS: 58/48.1882
高進高望
17. Gongsun Du Gongsun Yu c.150 none same – SGZ: Wei 8.252
公孫度公孫琙/域
18. Han Rong Han Hao unknown 養子 SGZ: Wei: 9.270
韓榮韓浩
19. Jin Guangyan Jin Yuan 金援 150s agnate same – 立以爲後 Li shi 15.10b-11b
金廣延
M. Brown, R. de Crespigny / JESHO 52 (2009) 229-266
20. Liang 良 X Liang He 良賀 eunuch unknown 養子 HHS: 78/68.2518

21. Liu Feng Liu Bei 劉備 202 affinal different yes 養封爲子 SGZ: Shu: 10.991
劉封
22. Sun He 孫河 Yu 俞 X maternal different yes yes 岀後姑俞氏 SGZ: Wu: 6.1214
relative
a woman]
23. Sun Shou Sun Cheng eunuch unknown 養子 HHS: 78/68.2518

孫壽孫程
24. Tang 唐 X* Tang Heng eunuch unknown HHS: 70/60.2281,
唐衡 SGZ: Wei: 10:309
25. Unnamed unknown eunuch unknown 侍子 SGZ Wu 4:1184
26. Wang Ji 王吉 Wang Fu 王甫 eunuch unknown 養子 HHS 77/67:2501,
78/68:2526
27. Wang Meng Wang Fu 王甫 eunuch unknown 養子 HHS 77/67:2501,
王萌 78/68:2526
28. Wang 王 X Wang Mang paternal uncle same – 養 Hanshu 99A: 4039
王莽
29. Wei Ji 衛繼 Zhang 張 X none different yes yes 養子 SGZ Shu 15: 1091
30. Yan Ju 嚴舉 Yan Zishun agnate same – 收集/後 Li xu 11:4b-8a
嚴子順
31. Yang Dang Yang 楊 X eunuch unknown HHS 58/48.1882
楊黨
32. Yuan Shao Yuan Cheng paternal uncle same – 後伯夫成 Yuan Shansong 19b
袁紹袁成
33. Yuan Tan Yuan 袁 X c.195 paternal uncle same – 岀後伯夫成 HHS 74/64A:2373
261
袁譚
262
a woman]
34. Zhang Zhang He c. 91 paternal uncle same – HS 59.2651-52.
Pengzu 張賀 BCE
張彭祖
35. Zhang 張 X Zhang Rang eunuch unknown HHS 69/59.2251
張讓
36. Zheng Hong Zheng Zhong eunuch unknown 養子 HHS 78/68:2513
鄭閎鄭眾
37. Zhou Xi 周熙 Zhou Ba paternal uncle same – Fengsu tongyi 3f:
周霸 105
38. Zhu Ran Zhu Zhi maternal different yes yes 以爲嗣 SGZ Wu 11:1305
朱然朱祇/秪 uncle and 1309
39. Zhu 朱 X Zhu Yu 朱瑀 eunuch unknown 養子 HHS 78/68:2527
40. Zuo Qiaoyun Zuo Tuo 左通 unknown 養子 HYGZ 10B.150
左喬雲
1)
Unless otherwise specified, the initiator of the adoption process is assumed to be a full male, but in some cases it is identified as a eunuch or as a
M. Brown, R. de Crespigny / JESHO 52 (2009) 229-266
woman.
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Adoption in Han China

Miranda Dympna Brown

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Adoption in Han China

Miranda Brown and Rafe de Crespigny*

*) Miranda Brown, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of

pregnant and gave birth to a daughter. Ashamed of having produced a girl,

Ying Shao’s warning is reﬂected in the general opinion of present-day

parent or foster parent.”9 We ask whether there was widespread consensus

To Adopt or Not to Adopt

oﬀ the sacriﬁces of one’s forebears—this is the third kind of impiety” (buqu

of a diﬀerent surname, underscores a second point: namely, that the desig-

□□□□爲縣官有爲也, 以其故死若傷二旬中死, 皆爲死事者, 令子男襲其爵。毋爵者,

2004, at Dongpailou 東牌樓 near Changsha, archaeologists discovered the

其舉義兵已來, 將士絕無後者, 求其親戚以後之, 授土田, 官給耕牛, 置學師以教之.

Though the proclamation is straightforward enough, one turn of phrase

tice of adopting individuals of a diﬀerent surname. Yet Ying’s opinion

The following examples give a general impression of the parameters of

to as “nourished sons” (yangzi). In contrast to late imperial times, when the

maternal clan was thus likely to be a close blood relative.58 In addition, he

sacriﬁces.68 In this, Han and early middle-period chroniclers diﬀered from

Conclusion and Discussion

could be passed to siblings, parents, wives or female children. The practice

20. Liang 良 X Liang He 良賀 eunuch unknown 養子 HHS: 78/68.2518

23. Sun Shou Sun Cheng eunuch unknown 養子 HHS: 78/68.2518

Du You 杜佑. 2002. Tongdian 通典. 5 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.

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