[83] As, for instance, after the silk worms have been taken off the scrub-oak bushes.
[84] The Origin of Property in Land, transl. by M. Ashley, p. 151.
[85] Perhaps it is hardly necessary to explain that a Chinese who cuts himself adrift from his family, or emigrates, or sets up in business in some distant town or in a foreign Settlement such as Shanghai, may and often does acquire real property under conditions that render him absolutely independent of his family or clan. The family-rights are not, indeed, extinguished: they are merely in abeyance owing to the difficulty or impossibility of enforcing them. Yet the theory of family-ownership is often—thanks to Chinese conservatism and clan-loyalty—fully recognised even in such cases as these.
[86] The Chinese word for "Family" (chia) is often more suitably rendered with the word "Clan."
[87] This is a customary, not a legal, arrangement.
[88] In Weihaiwei a mortgage is regarded as an out-and-out sale if the right of redemption is not exercised after a definite number of years.
[89] This may be compared with Hindu custom. "The instant a child is born he acquires a vested right in his father's property, which cannot be sold without recognition of his joint ownership" (Maine's Ancient Law, p. 228). Cf. also Plato, Laws, xi.: "You cannot leave your property to whomsoever you please, because your property belongs to your family, that is, to your ancestors and your descendants." This is the Chinese theory precisely.
[90] The fên-shu being "neither secret, deferred, nor revocable," may be compared with the early Roman "Will," which was not a Will at all in the modern sense of the word. See Lord Avebury's Origin of Civilisation (6th ed.), pp. 486-7.
[92] That is, Mrs. Yü née Ts'ung.