Chapter 6 traces the logic beneath state-sponsored reconfiguration of family order in general, and generational relations in particular, within the context of China’s constitutional transformation in the first half of the twentieth century. Within a few decades, an empire that “ruled through the principle of filiality” became a modern republic that denounced the father–son cardinal bond in power succession and abandoned generational hierarchies in laws. Social practice on the ground witnessed gradual and uneven changes; but state builders, from late Qing legal reformers to Nationalist lawmakers, persisted in the statist direction they designed for China, in the hope of atomizing individual citizens as the first step to connect them directly to the state. The generation-long building of new sociolegal mechanisms, while obstructive to the formation of a stable political order in the short term, laid the foundation for the rebirth of China as a modern state.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.

The concluding chapter describes the equal sharers as nonconformists, resisters of gendered norms, and recounts the social criticism that their lifestyle can evoke. The chapter identifies factors across diverse cultures that enable this resistance. They include couples’ conscious adoption of egalitarian principles and insistence that they be put into practice, which often entails women’s sense of entitlement to equality, and their ongoing communication with their partners. In addition, anti-essentialist beliefs, familism, and anti-materialism underwrite their equality. Lessons from their families of origin, whose lives they either imitate or reject also encourage their resistance to gendered norms. Finally, the chapter enumerates the rewards equal sharing provides for men, women, marriage/partnership, and children.

Each of these chapters contains a case study of a couple from the relevant country. Each includes a description of the everyday life of the couple with respect to the division of housework and childcare, a recounting of the history of their relationship and how it became equal, a discussion of how they balance paid work and family, and an analysis of the factors that facilitate their equality. Those factors include their conviction in gender equality, their rejection of essentialist beliefs, their familism, and their socialization in their families of origin. By showing how and why they undo gender, these couples provide lessons on how equality at home can be achieved.