Abstract:

Taking the transformation of house property in a lineage-based Hakka village in South China as a case study, this paper explores how house co-ownership has persisted as a stable form of property tenure, rather than as a pre-modern relic on the path to "private ownership." The study finds that the ancestral hall-residence (ciwu) system in the case village constitutes the material ontology of lineage society and the spatiotemporal structure of communal property ownership. The systematic correspondence between the lineage branch (fang) system and the building system shapes a hierarchical order of property co-ownership. The integration of ancestral hall and residence accommodates both ritual and residential functions through a spatial layout characterised by a central axis symmetry and a courtyard complex. Inheritance practices that maintain unity amid division-such as cross-allocation and communal use-have enabled the long-term coexistence of property co-ownership and individual possession. The Land Reform of the 1950s dismantled lineage organizations and lineage communal property, redistributing many landlord properties to poor and lower-middle peasants with formal title registration. However, since the Reform and Opening-up in the 1980s, accompanied by the revival of ancestral worship practices, these households have gradually sold the properties back to the descendants of the original landlord families, leading to a reversion of house property toward the traditional logic of lineage and family co-ownership. Comparative case analysis reveals that the combination of "actual possession" (physical control) by descendants of the original landlord families and "virtual possession"(symbolic presence) by ancestors in the ancestral hall constitutes the crucial mechanism for reclaiming ancestral property and serves as an anchor for the restoration of co-ownership. Only when the integration of hall and residence is achieved-that is, when property co-owners simultaneously constitute a worship community aligned with the lineage structure-can a sense of complete ownership be attained, thereby ensuring the continuity of possession and the consolidation of ownership. This finding challenges the linear presumption of "possession leads to private ownership" in Western jurisprudence, demonstrating instead that possession can function as a precursor to communal ownership rather than privatization. The study suggests that understanding rural property rights in China requires attention to the ontological value of housing, and that modern property institutions may accommodate traditional co-ownership wisdom at the legal level.

Key words: house, co-ownership, possession, lineage, Land Reform