Gansu girls still calling the shots

In an isolated pocket of Northwest China, women have traditionally been dominant, with husbands assuming their wife's surname and living with their parents-in-law, as Wang Xiaodong reports from Kangxian county, Gansu province.

In most regions of China, women leave home to get married and then follow their husbands. However, in many parts of Kangxian county in the northwestern province of Gansu, the reverse is true: traditionally, the groom moves in with his parents-in-law and his children take his wife's family name.

"Although this tradition mostly prevails in the southern parts of Kangxian, it also exists in a few other places nearby, such as Lueyang in neighboring Shaanxi province," said Li Wenkang, chairman of the Kangxian Federation of Literary and Art Circles.