Maonan Kinship

       A typical Maonan household is composed of three generations: children, parents and grandparents. An overwhelming number of married couples live with the husbands' parents. If the husband's parents have more than one son, the parents would choose to live with the youngest son. The other children shall live separately from the parents when married.
       Maonan kinship system appears to be less complicated than Chinese in that unlike Chinese, Maonan makes no distinction between the genders for ego's younger siblings, among other things, as also true of all Kam-Tai groups. Thus the term nuŋ4 refers to younger siblings regardless of their genders.
       Similarly, Maonan makes no distinction between father's elder brother, mother's elder brother, father's elder sister's husband and mother's elder sister' husband. Nor does it distinguish between father's younger male siblings and father's younger sister's husband, and between mother's younger male siblings and mother's younger sister's husband. This is different from the Chinese system, where a six-way distinction is made for such kinship relationship.