"A Daughter is a Daughter All Her Life": Affinal Relations and Women's Networks in Song and Late Imperial China

This oft-repeated English poem encapsulates folk wisdom about the relationships that "Western" adult males and females have with their parents after marriage. The poem suggests that, consistent with the biblical injunction that a man should "leave his father and mother, and . . . cleave unto his wife," 3 the relationships of men to their parents become more distant after marriage. According to folk wisdom, however, the same is not true of daughters who, married or not, continue to behave as daughters all their lives.