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In addition to the three main sections — patrician families, gentry-bureaucracy, and commoners — there were in traditional China also a number of special groups. Before discussing these groups it is advisable to mention some special distinctions and privileges of status revealed in dress, residence, ornaments, household utilities, transportation means, and many other social formalities.
From very early time the Chinese had started to use symbols, colors, numbers, precious materials, and many kinds of designs to represent and to differentiate social positions, degrees of authority and having or not having special privileges. Most of the scholars, social thinkers and statesmen of the Chūnqiū 春秋 and Warring States (Zhànguó 战国) periods (periods 04d-04e) maintained that there must be different dresses, houses, instruments, and decorations to show social distinctions and to keep social order. If a society or a state is to be well organized and to have orderly functions it must be properly graded and the grades must be accurately and precisely indicated. Guǎnzǐ 管子 (?-645 BC), for example, said:
People’s dresses should be made in accordance with each person’s official (or social) rank. Their spending ability and their manners should be regulated according to their salaries (or income). Food should be rationed, and clothes be regulated. Their residence should be built according to certain measures, their servants and work animals must be limited to certain numbers, and they cannot have vehicles and implements as many as they like. Living people should have different kinds of hats, dresses, foods, lands, and residences; when they die their bodies should be treated and buried with different kinds of clothes, coffins and graves.”
In Xīnshū 新书 [by Jiǎ Yì 贾谊, 201-169 BC] it says:
Particular dresses and special ornaments are used to indicate highness and lowliness and to differentiate worthiness and unworthiness. Therefore, where there is the distinction of highness and lowliness there must be the difference of titles and labels, where there is the difference of authority there must be the difference of positions and responsibilities. With different positions and responsibilities there must be different flags or banners, different symbols and signs, different rites and treatments, different emoluments and ranks, different head-wear and foot-wear, different dresses and girdles … and different funerals and burials. (Xīnshū quán yī 新书卷一, fu-guan [?].)
Upon these principles or theories, all the symbols and signs of social and political differentiations were originated and institutionalized. From the early times signs of social differentiation were seen in almost every aspect of public life as well as private life. In the food aspect, for instance, the “Son of Heaven” was entitled to have beef, pork and mutton all together in one meal, whereas a lord could only have beef, a high official only lamb or mutton, a lesser official only pork, a shì 士, the lowest rank in the ruling class, only fish, and the commoners only vegetables. Older persons among the common people could also eat meat, without the prescription of what kind of meat.
In the aspect of clothing, social distinctions were carefully observed from the early time up to the end of Qīng 清 dynasty (period 21). Not only official and ceremonial dresses were different according to official and private positions and according to ranks in the official positions, but clothes of everyday life were also different in respect to social status. People of different social positions worn clothes of different colors. Some colors were limited to people of high ranks or high classes; commoners were forbidden to wear clothes of such colors.
In Hàn 汉 times, for instance, the colors for common people were black and green. In Suí 隋 (period 11), Táng 唐 (period 12), and Sòng 宋 (period 15), only officials and people who had official titles could wear dresses of purple, red, green and dark blue. Commoners and exiled officials were forbidden to wear them. In Suí, the common people worn only white dresses while in Táng they could wear either white or yellow. The regulation of Sòng was that, at first the common people could only wear white dresses, but later both commoners and exiled officials could wear white or black. Purple dresses were strictly forbidden. Even clothes with black and white patterns were also illegal for the common people and gentry who did not have official positions. Women were not allowed to wear white woolen or silk dresses, or such dresses of light brown.
The regulation of Míng 明 (period 20) was that commoners could wear clothes of all colors except yellow. Women could wear dresses of light and pretty colors such as purple, green, pink; but they were not allowed to wear deep red, dark blue and yellow. Their formal dresses were also limited to the color purple.
[Note: This discussion is based on prescriptive texts, that is, texts telling the reader what is supposed to be the case, not necessarily what is really the case. Actual enforcement of such regulations would have involved huge expense and a good deal of wrangling over the boundaries of color categories and would hardly have been worth the trouble.
It is a logical mistake to imagine that or law or moral injunction represents universal practice. Sometimes moralists prescribe ideal behaviors (especially for other people) that are unrealistic, and occasionally they turn them into unrealistic laws. Often some laws exist largely to provide a pretext to harass people whom the régime objects to on other grounds.
(Click here for More About Byzantine vs English Law.) —DKJ]
Dress materials were subject to regulations too. Generally, all kinds of silk fabrics and woolen materials were reserved for the ruling class and people who had close associations with this class. In Hàn, for instance, merchants were forbidden to wear any kind of silk or woolen cloth. They could only wear cloth of brown cotton material. In Táng, only officials were allowed to wear silk materials. The common people of Sòng wore only cotton dresses. The regulation of Yuán (period 19) was that common people could only wear coarse silk or woolen materials and the colors must not be gay. In Míng times (period 20), common people, men and women, could wear silk dresses but the material had to be coarse and without brilliant color or pretty pattern. Dresses laced or embroidered with golden yarns were strictly forbidden for common people.
Among the four classes of people only farmers were allowed to wear clothes of good silk materials. Merchants were strictly forbidden. The regulation of Qīng forbade officials below the fifth grade to wear dresses made of high quality and gorgeously patterned satin. It also forbade officials below the eighth grade to wear satin with big flower patterns. It also prescribed that the common people, both men and women, could wear silk without golden embroidery or flower pattern. Dresses with gold embroidery were strictly forbidden for commoners. In regard to head-wear and foot-wear the regulations were, in Táng, common people’s hats must be big but without rim or beak so that the bearer’s face could be completely exposed. The Yuán authority forbade commoners wearing hats or caps with gold or jade ornaments. The Míng regulation was that head-wear of exiled officials and common people should be topless and the ornaments made of crystal or camphor wood. Ornaments on kerchiefs could not be of gold, jade, ruby, or other precious stones. In Qīng period only officials of the nine grades and people who had at least the title of shēngyuán 生员 or jiànshēng 监生 could wear hats with a decorated top. Hats of common people were without any kind of decoration.
In Táng, wives of common people were not allowed to wear shoes made of five-colored yarns. The Yuán authority forbade common people to make their shoes with flower patterns. The same rule was practiced in the early part of Míng. Later on, it was ordered that only officials and the gentry class were allowed to wear boots made of leather.
Different classes of people wore different kinds of ornaments. The differences were indicated in both materials used and patterns or shapes. Generally, the common people were forbidden to use gold and precious stones as ornaments. In Táng, for instance, the common people could only wear ornaments made of iron or brass. In Sòng period, the wearing of gold, jade, silver, and rhinoceros horn ornaments was a privilege of officials of the nine grades. Government office servants, merchants and commoners were not allowed to use them. They could only wear ornaments made of iron, brass, crystal, and dark jade. Women’s positions were decided according to the position held by their husbands, fathers or sons. In the same way their ornaments were regulated. Ornaments of precious metals and stones and of elaborated patterns could only be worn by wives and daughters of high-officials and of the upper gentry.
In the aspect of residences, the differences in social and political positions were also quite evident. The size, the architecture, the compound arrangement, the decoration and the building indicated the the owner's having or not having special privileges. To mention them all is beyond the scope of this discussion. It is, however, significant that in both marriage and funeral rites and on many other special occasions means of signifying privileges, social positions and official ranks was much emphasized throughout the imperial periods. Then privileges were also shown in economic forms or institutions. Some special groups, for instance, were entitled to certain amounts and certain kinds of land free, other groups were given the exclusive right of collecting a certain tax in a certain area, or still other groups were offered exclusively the privilege of undertaking a certain kind of trade or manufacturing. In contrast, a group or groups might be barred from participating in certain kinds of economic activities.
In law there were also privileged and underprivileged groups. In the very early times, there was the theory and practice that humiliating punishments were not to be applied to the gentry-bureaucracy class. From this came the regulation that a man of the gentry class or who had the title of shēngyuán was entitled such privileges that he did not have to prostrate before the county magistrate and he was not to be punished in the form of corporal beating to which commoners were subjected. The principle was that a misbehaving commoner should be punished as strictly as parents punish their misbehaving child whereas an erring gentry member must be treated as an adult. Also, as a child should be humble toward and ready to give concession to an elder, so should a commoner toward the gentry in his community. The basis of such a principle probably lay in the gentry member being a leader of the community, who could render important services to the local people, while the commoner was only a small person who played not much of a role. This attitude was certainly in contradiction to Mencius’ teaching that the people are important.
The existence of special privileges created the specially privileged groups and vice versa. It also indirectly established the underprivileged groups. In between or in addition to these groups were those who were not only deprived of certain privileges and rights but also despised by their fellow citizens. All these are special groups and all had existence in imperial China. The imperial house and the nobility in every dynasty were the highest privileged special groups. Before Jìn 晋 times (period 8), the differentiation between the royal house and the government was not clear. The officials, members of the royal family and all the nobles were considered the ruling class.
This situation continued till the end of the early part of Western Hàn (Xīhàn 西汉) (period 6b). It was only after Hàn Wǔ dì 汉武帝 (reign 6b-6) that the imperial family was separated from the government. It is true that the emperor was head of the imperial household and at the same time the highest ruler of the nation, but the imperial family was separated from the government. Under the new conditions, the imperial household was more an especially privileged group than a ruling class. The emperor and many of the princes were rulers or high officials, but a number of the members in the household were not officials and had nothing to do with the nation’s administration.
The imperial household of every dynasty possessed a number of special privileges of which the important ones were the right of owning the best land without paying a land price and tax. The imperial household was exempted from many kinds of taxes and civil obligations. Its members were not bound by laws which other people had to obey.
In the Yuán 元 dynasty (period 19), Chinese society had nine special groups. They were the officials, the government clerks, the Buddhist monks, the Daoists, the medicine men, the artisans, the hunters, the farmers, the scholars, and the beggars. The high officials and important office clerks were all Mongols. They were special groups. The Buddhist monks enjoyed great favor from the Mongolian imperial house and therefore, were put in a better position. They became a special-privilege group. The positions of farmers and scholars were so low on the ladder because the farmers were mostly the southern Chinese, and because the Mongols could not understand the scholars’ importance.
In periods when the imperial family was not Chinese, the family members enjoyed much greater indulgence in creating and enjoying special privileges, and the privileges were heavily saturated with racial superiority and discrimination against the Chinese subjects. This discrimination was clearly shown in the [Mongol] Yuán and [Manchu] Qīng class struggles. The Manchus had come into China with their own people organized in military formations, the “banners.” They had reserved for themselves a special position in China and held about half the high official posts.
But aside from holding some provincial positions , they remained on the whole in the capital and in more or less isolated garrisons in a few key strategic locations. They did not participate in Chinese social life as a whole. They did not live in the Chinese communities. Therefore, they were really a special group. One of their greatest privileges was that they did not have to work, but always got a share from the nation’s revenues. Some of them occupied the best “land in various places and then rented the land out and enjoyed the landlords’ privileges. The institutions of royal estate kinsmen estate, banner estate, army estate, officials’ estate, and temple estate were all appropriated land properties.
The nobilities of various dynasties were also a privileged special group. This group was different from the imperial household group in that it included not only the princes and princesses related to the imperial family but also those unrelated people who had been granted by the emperor titles and privileges of various nobilities. There had always been some degrees of difference between nobilities of the imperial family and those who had no royal blood. The latter were in general somewhat lower than the former. When the imperial family was non-Chinese the degree of difference was greater. In other words, the Chinese nobility enjoyed less privilege than the [Manchu] nobility, which had kinship relations with the royal family.
The slaves formed an underprivileged special group. As was pointed out at the beginning, whether or not there was a slave class as socially important as the other classes is still a great controversy among Chinese sociologists and historians. But that there had been slaves at various times is an established historical fact. Some scholars believe that when the Shāng 商 people (period 3) were defeated by the Zhōu 周 tribe (period 4), they were made slaves to work for the new conquerors, although there is no unbiased fact to support this speculation. The assumption which can be considered close to fact is that slaves appeared the first time at the latter part of Chūnqiū 春秋 and the period of the Waring States (Zhànguó 战国) (periods 4d-4e). It is said, for instance, that when Fàn Lǐ 范蠡 the great merchant of the time, moved from [the state of] Yuè 越 to [the state of] Qí 齐, he took with him a large number of slaves. In the monograph on economics in Qiánhàn Shū 前汉书, History of Former Hàn, there is a section on slaves. It records that a man by the name Zhuō Shì 桌氏 of the region of Shǔ 蜀 [modern Sìchuān 四川] had eight hundred slaves, and that Diāo Jiān 刁间 of Qí loved to have slaves. He used his slaves to carry on trade in salt, sea products and other daily necessities. Finally, he made a big fortune out of his slaves.
According to this record, it seems that there were two types of slaves at that early time. One type was domestic slaves and the other type would include business slaves. Business slaves were not only used for on carrying trades but also for working on farms, in handicraft, in mining and other trades.
Up to the Hàn period, the number of slaves increased tremendously. Most of them belonged to the imperial family, the nobles, and the high officials. But private citizens, especially the rich merchants and big landlords, also had slaves. Slaves of the imperial family, nobility and high officials were mostly used for pleasure and luxurious living while slaves of rich merchants and big landlords were for work or producing purposes. It is maintained by some scholars that in the Hàn period slaves were not too much different from the common people. They were not deprived of many of the rights that a common person was entitled to. Besides, they were frequently released to return to the status of a common citizen. Apparently slaves in early Hàn could be bought and sold. For when Wáng Mǎng 王莽 (reign 6c-1) became emperor through usurpation, he decreed that slaves were to be called “personal effectives” and they were not to be bought and sold.
From Táng up to Qīng slaves were still in existence but underwent a great change. Domestic slaves remained in the same old situation, but those on the farms became tenants or permanent farm hands.
The lot of the farm hand was between that of the slave and that of the common people. He was not called or considered a slave, yet his position was much lower than that of a free farmer. If a tenant, he was not only obliged to pay rent, but in addition he had to fulfill a number of other obligations. He had practically no right to leave the farm should he wish to do so. If a permanent farm hand on a great family’s estate, he and his family were given a piece of land to cultivate; they were considered members of the great household and had protection from the lord of the estate. In ordinary times he lived as a tenant and enjoyed quite an amount of freedom. But he had no freedom to leave the estate. In return for the land and protection received from the lord, he was obliged to pay rent and other services and was required to fight for the lord in case of war between the lord and his enemies.
The farm estate institution, or the zhuāngyuán 庄园, flourished in the Sòng period and a great number of rural people fell into this mixed status of tenant-slave-farmhand. One can get quite a clear picture of these people’s life and social position by reading the famous novel Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn 水浒传 or All men are Brothers. [Click here for a quick overview of this novel.]
This institution continued through Yuán and Míng. It was broken by the middle of Qīng. In other words, from the 19th century on, there were only, by and large, domestic or personal slaves. The economic slaves disappeared, or changed into farm tenants or apprentices. According to C. K. Yang’s preliminary study, (unpublished MS, chapter V, pp. 24-25) there were evidently three general types of slaves in the 19th century China.
One type included those persons who were condemned to slavery because of crime, criminal offences, or political crimes. This type of slave served both in private homes of officials and in government offices. However, they could be freed by the wish of their masters or officials of a government post.
The second type of slave comprised both persons who sold themselves or were sold officially into slavery. The status of slavery in this case is established by an official contract called “Red Contract” because the color of the written contract was red. Slavery status of this type was permanent, lasting throughout the lifetime of the slave unless freed by the master.
A third type of slave includes those who were sold into slavery by private contract without any official seal or official recognition. Such contracts were properly termed “White Contracts,“ since they were written on white pieces of paper. Slaves of this type usually were held to that status only for the time described in the contract. They were to be freed at the conclusion of a certain number of years. This type of slave retained a great deal of individual independence and personal rights. In case of mistreatment by his or her master, a slave of this kind could regain freedom by paying back part of the price judged to be fair by local officials. This kind of slave does not seem to have been subjected to the exclusion from the privilege of taking part in the official examinations.
The merchants (shāng 商) have generally been regarded as one of the four traditional classes, as has been discussed in the section on shì 士, nóng 农, gōng 工, shāng 商. But at various times and under certain circumstances the merchants were looked down upon and grouped with the unworthy people. The historical origin of this attitude might have been that in the early times it was the slaves who were sent to trade, as pointed out in the foregoing. Fàn Lǐ 范蠡 (536-448 BC) made his great fortune by carrying on trade. But actually he did not do the business himself. He had many slaves who did the buying, selling transporting, manufacturing, and bargaining. All such businesses had manual work and rough going involved. Certainly they were not activities of gentlemen or of the gentry-bureaucracy class. Consequently those who either voluntarily or unwillingly pursued such activities were regarded as unworthy people.
Another possible account might be that, although the gentry-bureaucracy did not do materially productive work themselves, they nevertheless gave emphasis or paid respect (at least lip service) to those who actually produced things. Thus the farmers and, to a certain extent, the handicraftsmen were comparatively important people. The merchants, however, did not produce anything; yet they made profits by buying cheaply from one group of people and selling expensively to another group of people. In a sense, this behavior was cheating, or not ethical, and it was in conflict with the Confucian ideology. It was, therefore, believed that only mean people would choose the buying and selling as a livelihood.
Besides, rich merchants had always led a luxurious life which was envied and resented by the poor gentry. In compensation the gentry cultivated in themselves a feeling that they were spiritually, socially, and culturally higher than those “money-stained” merchants and consequently assumed a superior attitude toward the merchants. To inform the people of the difference between the merchants and themselves, the gentry-bureaucracy made regulations at various times that deprived merchants of certain privileges which were even enjoyed by the poor farmers, or compelled them to wear a certain kind of symbol which had a ridiculing implication.
For instance, in many of the imperial periods, merchants had to wear dresses which were prescribed to slaves, servants, or other degraded people. In Hàn, slaves and merchants both wore dark or white dresses. In Suí, merchants’ clothes were black. The Míng regulation prescribed that of the common people only farmers are allowed to wear silk. Merchants had to wear cotton material. If there was any member of a farm family who was a merchant, that family was to be deprived of the right of wearing silk. Similar humiliation was inflicted upon the merchants in almost every other aspect of life. And it was not until the latter part of the 19th century that this discrimination became fundamentally relaxed.
Another special group at the bottom of the social ladder is the so-called jiànmín 贱民, the mean people or unworthy people. The merchants were sometimes included in this group but usually they were of the specially designated people. Before the Republic, the barbers, the entertainers, the domestic servants, musicians or chuīgǔshǒu 吹鼓手, and servants in the county and zhōu 州 government offices were regarded as the lowly people. Another group of jiànmín included prostitutes and prostitute house operators and professional beggars. A third group included the itinerant monks, Daoists, nuns, and the “medicine men and medicine women.” The fortune tellers, the professional match-makers and the home visiting “sales-ladies” were also included in this group.
At several times, a racial group was treated as jiànmín. The Yuán regime, for example, treated the southern Chinese as a very low class of people. They were called the nánrén 南人 southern people, with a humiliating implication. This was, however, not a Chinese custom and it lasted only a short period. Another politically originated group of jiànmín was the offspring of [the Red Turban rebel] Zhāng Shìchéng 张士诚 (1321-1367). Zhāng was a formidable empire competitor and therefore a great enemy of Zhū Yuánzhāng 朱元璋, founder of Míng dynasty. When Zhāng was defeated by Zhū, the latter decreed that all kinsfolk of Zhāng and their offspring were to be treated as jiànmín.
In Qīng, the people who permanently lived on river boats were also considered jiànmín . They were barred from taking part in the official examinations. They were not allowed to leave their boats to live on land. As a group or as a tribe their [derogatory] official name was dànmín 蛋民 or dànhù 蛋户.
[Note: The Dànmín, more usually called Dànjiā 蛋家, are referred to in English as Tanka or sometimes simply “boat people.” The character 蛋 for dàn (which means egg , testicle, or idiot) has an alternate writing 蜑 which is sometimes used instead in the expression Dànjiā, and which is considered by some to be especially derogatory. —DKJ]
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