Abstract:  As widely agreed, lineage is one of the keys to understand traditional Chinese society. Nevertheless, ignoring ancient discourses on lineage, current scholarship often assumes that lineage was made and remade by and for power.
Instead, this article argues that we must take efforts to understand what the great Chinese minds thought about lineage and why, not taking the modern or postmodern position for granted. As a small step moving towards this goal, the paper gives an outline of lineage theory contained in Confucius Classics and that of NeoConfucians.
In Classics, lineage theory is composed of three parts: Zongfa, Mourning system, and ancestral temple system. Zongfa, the center of lineage theory, is the organizing principle of lineage that mandates that only the wife’s eldest son can serve as the lineage head, whose main responsibility is to lead the lineage to offer sacrifices to ancestors. While the Mourning system is also mainly based on social relationship, personal virtue plays a minor but important role. On the other hand, ancestral temple system is built largely according to personal virtue. Lineage activities center on funerals and sacrifices, and lineage head is granted neither political nor economic power to control the lineage.
While NeoConfucians inherited the main spirit of Classics, they also modified classical lineage theory in important ways in order to come to terms with the changing social reality. First, NeoConfucians allowed commoners to adopt Zongfa as the ruling principle for lineage making, because economic development and social mobility produced many rich and welleducated commoners. Secondly, the political hierarchy embedded in the ancestral temple system was largely abandoned. In Classics, ancestral temple system served as a supplement to Zongfa. But for NeoConfucians, the predicament was exactly the dying influence of Zongfa. Therefore, under this circumstance, ancestral temple became the main focus for the rebirth of Zongfa.
In short, this article argues that ancient discourses on lineage were not ideologies as frivolously assumed, but provide complex and insightful thoughts on human nature. At least partially due to this, lineage has played a long and vigorous role in Chinese society.

Key words: mourning system , detached son, Zongfa ,  ancestral temple system , lineage