Within the Northwestern areas dominated by Jats, the other caste groups show lower evidence of son preference than Jats. This corresponds with the fact that the Jats effectively owned the place, owning most if not all of the land and extending their lineage-based administrative system to the village as whole ─ the other castes were heavily dependent on the Jats for access to their livelihood, through patron-client relationships (Pradhan 1966, Das Gupta 1995). The stronger son preference of Jats has been noted from early censuses (Hutton 1933: 200-204). Interestingly, Visaria (2007) found that the district of Gujarat with the lowest child sex ratio in the 2001 census had a heavy concentration of people who migrated there from Haryana about 200 years ago, and still follow Jat customs.

In China, the Han with their rigid patrilineages constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, but as discussed above patrilineal corporate structures were weaker in the North than in the South. Some of the non-Han minorities have not yet adopted the Han kinship system. For example, the southern provinces bordering Myanmar and Laos have minorities such as the Na who practice matrilineal kinship, and the Lahu who practice bilateral kinship (Hua 2001, Du 2002). In Western Chinese provinces such as Xinjiang, the Uyghurs prefer to marry within their own village and cooperate economically with both maternal and paternal kin, so daughters are not lost to their parents (Rudelson 1997). Anderson and Siver (1995: Table 7) find the 1990 census data show clear ethnic differentials in the sex ratios at birth in Xinjiang province: the Uyghurs had a normal ratio of 105, while the Han had an elevated ratio of 109.

Western Chinese provinces such as Tibet and Qinghai have large Tibetan populations, who traditionally practice fraternal polyandry (Child 2003, Levine 1988). A 1958 census of one of these areas shows high proportions of adult women unmarried (Child 2003: Table 5). These women lived either within the household or in an “adjunct house”, and might have children.<sup>24</sup> They received financial and other support from their natal family, and remained available to help their families. This is radically different from the Han system, in which there was little scope for grown daughters to be supported by their natal household, and certainly not to raise illegitimate children there.

Another variation on patrilineal kinship organization is in Korea, where the lineage is continued through the line of the eldest son in each generation, and the other sons would start their own sub-lineages (Kwang-gyu 2003:93). This meant that the eldest son had the burden of caring for all the preceding generations of male ancestors (Janelli and Janelli 1982:17980), and it was especially important for him to bear a son to continue the family line. In China, the responsibilities of ancestor worship are equally shared by all the sons, but in Korea other sons only take on the task if the eldest son fails at his task (Janelli and Janelli 1982: 179-180; Janelli and Yim 2004:138). This inflexibility heightens the urgency for eldest sons to have a son of their own ─ and the data show that the eldest sons’ wives report the strongest son preference and are more likely to continue childbearing till they bear a son (Larsen el al 1998; Chung and Das Gupta 2007).

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