(Fox 1967), and the neo-Confucians in China and Korea sought to use this for political ends (Deuchler 1992, Faure 2007). This required the unusually rigid manifestation of patrilineal kinship rules. The interplay of culture, state, and political processes shaped gender roles and the relative value of boys and girls to their parents, and explain the large geographic variation in child sex ratios between countries, as well as between regions of China and India.

The paper also argues that the advent of the modern state in these settings has unraveled the underpinnings of the rigid patrilineal rules, and unleashed a variety of forces that reduce son preference. A vector of forces are now at work,<sup>3</sup> with some making for higher child sex ratios ― such as easier access to sex selection technologies, and reduced family size ― while the reduced incentives to prefer sons over daughters work in the opposite direction. This means that we cannot predict the exact timing and pace of normalization of child sex ratios, but we can understand the factors underlying their normalizing trend.

# **1. THE ROLE OF KINSHIP SYSTEMS IN SHAPING GIRLS’ AND BOYS’ RELATIVE VALUE TO THEIR PARENTS**

Kinship systems shape the relative value of girls and boys largely through their rules of inheritance. The details of these rules vary considerably on the ground, so some simplification is needed to distinguish their main differences. Inheritance is through the male line in _patrilineal_ systems, through the female line in _matrilineal_ systems, and through both the male and female lines in _bilateral_ systems. Residence are _patrilocal_ if a couple lives with the husband’s kin after marriage, _matrilocal_ if with the wife’s kin, and _neolocal_ if the couple establishes a new household after marriage.<sup>4</sup>

# **_a) Matrilineal Kinship Systems_**

These are rare today. Where the dominant system is patrilineal, legislative and other measures premised on patrilineal principles gradually erode matrilineal property relations and social systems.<sup>5</sup> This process is still ongoing in the matrilineal societies of Northwest India and in Yunnan province of China (Nongbri 1993, Hua 2001).

# **_b) Bilateral Kinship Systems_**

These permit a great deal of flexibility in inheritance and residence. People recognize kin on both the father’s and the mother’s sides, may inherit from either side, and a couple may live with relatives on either side or by themselves. Kinship obligations are fluid and negotiable. Bilateral kinship arrangements are becoming increasingly common in the modern world, where rigid rules of inheritance and residence are being broken down by the exigencies of living and working in an industrialized economy.

Bilateral kinship systems are also “traditional” in many societies, even from the pre-modern period. They are common in SouthEast Asia, as documented in ethnographies of the Malays, the Filipinos, across Indonesia (Java, Bali, Borneo), and Thailand.<sup>6</sup> Since unilineal descent and inheritance is not practiced, people typically do not remember kinship relationships beyond their grandparental generation. This has been termed “genealogical amnesia” (Geertz and Geertz 1964), and Carsten (1995) has documented it in ethnographies across SouthEast 3