The Classical period. The metal bound box -- Hexagrams -- Songs and poems -- The battle of Chin and Ch'u -- Confucius -- Chuang Tzu. The Han Dynasty. The debate on salt and iron -- Rules for visiting -- Social relations -- Two women -- The interaction of yin and yang -- Local cults -- Uprisings. The era of division and the T'ang dynasty. Ko Hung's autobiography -- Dedicatory colophons -- A woman's hundred years -- The examination system -- Household registration -- Slaves -- Family division. The Sung and Yuan dynasties. Book of rewards and punishments -- Precepts of the Perfect Truth Taoist sect -- Ancestral rites -- The shrew -- The problems of women -- Rules for the Fan lineage's charitable estate -- The attractions of the capital -- The mutual responsibility system -- On farming -- A schedule for learning -- Kuo Pi's diary. The Ming dynasty. Proclamations of the Hung-wu emperor.

Laws against theft and robbery -- Maxims for daily life -- The dragon boat race -- Village ordinances -- Routine commercial procedures -- What the weaver said -- Tenants -- Shi Chin, the nine-dragoned -- Merchants in the Ming -- Family instructions -- The spite of Lotus -- Li Chih's letters. The Ch'ing dynasty. Parables and ghost stories -- Proverbs about heaven -- Almanac -- Taxes and labor service -- Permanent property -- Lan Ting-yüan's casebook -- Exhortations on ceremony and deference -- Village organization -- The village headman and the new teacher -- Boat people -- Infant protection society -- Mid-century rebels -- The conditions and activities of workers -- Marriage contracts -- Genealogy rules -- Families and lineages of Yen-yüan county.

The early twentieth century. The movement against footbinding -- The new prefect -- Rural education -- The Shanghai Builders' Guild -- On freeing slave girls -- My old home -- The Hai-feng Peasant Association -- The dog-meat general -- The general strike -- Funeral processions -- My wife and child -- Birth customs -- The life of beggars -- Spring silkworms -- The orange grower and the old sailor. The People's Republic. Land reform -- Hu Feng's letters -- The state budget and the standard of living -- A new young man at the organization department -- Developing agricultural production -- The correct handling of love, marriage, and family problems -- The spring festival -- Lei Feng, Chairman Mao's good fighter -- Housing in Shanghai -- Red Guards -- My accusations -- The nature of diseases -- Modern models for family life and marriage -- Population control and the four modernizations.