In their effect on marriage and the family, as in so many other domains, the reforms can be seen as having a dual thrust. On the one hand, by giving the land in long-term leases back to the family, and allowing it to invest in a variety of small and medium-sized ventures, they have restored something like the situation in rural China before the collectivization of 1956, when the family estate was the source of income and investment in opportunity for most rural Chinese. On the other hand, the reforms have been undertaken explicitly in the name of modernization, and