New Ideas of Family in the Song Dynasty - Essay Example

New ideas of Family in the Song Dynasty Name Class Affiliation Instructor The journal on the concept of Sound Dynasty presents a totally different life that is present in the organization of family life of the Chinese world. Earlier on the Chinese life was simple and organized in the kinship system. There were basics that were common in the family life. The form of ancestry, patrilineality and ancestor worship, was common among the family life of the Chinese, (Sullivan 2009). With time though the economic, legal and demographic circumstances that have come up have changed the way of living of the Chinese and the family life. The new life presented today saw the political and economic system that helped in the establishment of aristocratic kinship being abolished. Families were no longer passed down in a single line. They came up due to the free buying and selling of land. The land that was passed down from one generation to the next now was sold at free will since it was ancestral. This broke down the family lineage, and people of the same family would now live in different lands, (Patricia 1984). A son that was incompetent could sell a land that belonged to his father. A chia was a word common in the Chinese family used to refer to a surname used within the family. A family in the Chinese family was different in the classical times. The article presents a different family that has evolved since then. It presents a totally different family that is seeing it’s through in the Chinese family. The Chia of the classic time had changed, and new terms were introduced associated with the chia. Chia became a family group that lived together and brought its resources together. During the classic period, the chi was headed as a small group by a father and remained intact in the generations that followed. The leadership was passed on to the eldest brother in the family. Tsung however, did not change and remained the term used to refer to descent line, and for the category of relatives with different relatives with a common ancestor. Though the kinship ties continued to regulate the interaction that resided in a locality, the bonds were no longer necessary to form a basis for local political activities. Teachers of the time to revive and renew the ideal kinship system of the Classic were called but the political and economical institution of the time was more influential. The systems of the land tenure was different and had logic. Families had to be enlightened in order to survive. The economics of the time were harsh and therefore, families had to divert their way of living for them to fit in the society that was seeing its way through, (Owen 1997). The chia that exists nowadays has a beginning and an end. It can be started and end at any time. It contrasts to the descent line that has no beginning or end. A chia could be compared to a state as it comprised the basic unit of political economy. A ruler could either inherit a state or start one himself. The state over to the next descendants was handled and highly preserved duty left to the ancestors. Sacrifices to the ancestors at the end of the material base were done that is if there was a cut off of the state, (Mair 2005). The dependence of the family however, did not change in any way. The idea introduced in a chia was that it had a single past and a single future. This meant that the past that existed was only one and that of the future was directed too, as well. It was very flexible as it could be founded and destroyed; it had room to grow bigger and at the same time contrast. There was no branching for the chia. A state had only one ruler, even if families divided to form two or three families the basic image of the Chia had no place for collateral lines, (Goldin 2005). If a chia ended and another was formed, the current one considered the past one as its past and ruled differently from the past Chia. The new chia had components, and it also possessed. It had material, immaterial, animate objects and inanimate. A chia had resources, wealth and had a heritage. It had land and properties. It also had head and members. There were servants and children and mothers, as well. The chia had rules and teachings that were passed on. It also had businesses. It was quite discrete and could be counted. A chia could not exist in another chia. Every chia existed on its own. If there existed subunits of a chia, then they were called rooms or fang. This emerged from the collateral lines. Since there did not exist collateral lines in a chia, chia would be referred to as younger brothers, sons and nephews who lived together. This was the new idea behind the rooms that were formed as a form of collateral of the chia. People were a part of the components of chia. People were actually owned by a chia. However, these people had the power to change or add certain things to the Chia, (De bary 2000). They had the freedom to develop a family. People could work hard and cause the chi to grow and be successful. The people made the name of the chia. They could influence it negatively or positively. If people related well in the chia, then they brought about harmony. If people were in disagreement, then the chi could be divided up by them. If people decided to ruin it, they could. These meant that if people in the chi did not manage the economies of the chi then the resources would be lost, (Owen 1997). A proper chi stood where people developed families and managed them appropriately. A chia that had wasted resources was ruined. There were chias that were rich and others that could be classified as poor. These are because a chia possessed and was classified according to the quality of the possession that it acquired. Due to the different economic status there arose social status. There were people that were highly ranked and those that were officials. In the same way, there existed peasants. Families were however, equal, and no family was more valuable than the other. Nobody was classified in terms of being from a stupid family either. The new family thought of matters that affected it in a different way. People no longer viewed material as simply being there but as a security that fulfilled the goal in itself. Higher priority was placed on the welfare of the ancestors rather than their relatives. People wakened the father child association, and the older brother-younger association and also that of husband and wife, (Patricia 1984). They looked for affection and harmony in the family. If they were socially approved, then they were at ease of breaking the relationship of commanding and obey relationship that existed before. Ssu-ma said the old life of doing everything for your descendants is mere corruption of character. He said that those descendants will not appreciate anything since they did not work for it. He said that property relation destroyed ethical relation. This is because people would always be more concerned about money (Stenhard 2005). The idea of customary marriages that saw wives bringing dowry and sons holding certain property was not filial. It was an old custom. He introduced the new idea of a person’s body belonging to his parent and henceforth able to control their property, meaning that a man will not go hungry when his son has food and water in his house. The other idea that was introduced was the idea of marriage being sacred and would be separated by immorality. Earlier a man could only leave his wife on seven grounds that were provided by, Ssu-ma. If a wife had by any chance violated a ritual then expelling her was unquestionable. This meant that a jealous wife who is not repudiated would remain married. Then the question remains of how long the family could remain peaceful? Ssu-ma Kuang said that a son had no difference between him and his brother’s son. There were no grounds that separated the two. He said that there was no difference as both were the offspring of the man’s father. According to Ssu-ma Kuang the search for social approval could also distort the ethical relations between husbands and wives. He said, gentlemen dismiss their wives and the crowd condemns them unlike before when husbands and wives were joined by morality. If morality was violated then they separated and that was based on the ritual texts that had grounds that repudiated a wife. Today the condemning is done by the crowd considering the dismissal of a wife as misbehavior and therefore, gentlemen seldom it. Cheng I introduced the new family life saying that one needed not be obsessive with his or her ancestors. That no longer did sons have to compile with what their fathers wanted. They too could sit down and reason with their fathers. A family needed a strong person to manage the family. A weak person could not survive and spoiled unworthy sons who were self indulged in unpleasant matters and became disrespectful. The life that existed between the son and the father here is different. Sons became closer with their fathers and free to do things together. Lu Chiu saw a different family life, one that cared about poor kinsmen and was generous to them. A family took care of sons and grandsons, and did not abandon them out in the cold. He said that there existed little difference between states and families and for this reason they should act in the same way. He proposed a budget for families that had enough land. Twenty percent of the earnings should be set aside for the future or predicaments. There was every partition for every budget. Every amount was equally distributed. There was a certain amount set aside for the sick and the grieving. No amount was wasted but was put into proper use. Families that had less property were to utilize what they had wisely and produce everything at home. Clothes could be made at home as should the vegetables, (Sullivan 2009). This family should also set aside for misfortunes. In the classical concept, all grandfathers wanted to benefit their descendants though few make it today. This is explained by today’s prosperity made by the grandfathers who do nothing more than manage their livelihood. They do this so they could leave their descendants fields that run from path to path, houses and shops which extend from one neighborhood to the next. They are restlessly and never stop seeking for these things. They forget that families that hold up to their descendant need more of methods of ritual and instructions in duty and management of the wealth that they accumulate. This helps avoid extravagance and misuse of the wealth they took decades of hard work to accumulate, (Alder 2000). Unlike classical days, today the descendants will dissipate through extravagance in a year all the wealth they were left or given to them. Grandsons often laugh stupidly thinking that their grandfathers and fathers lacked ways of enjoying themselves. Relations became more disputed after the classical ages that are Sung times; this was widely explained by Ssu-ma Kuang when he saw other ways in which property relations disputed ethical relations, (Bloom 2000). It was customary for sons to hold certain property especially dowry brought by their wives. This was independent of the control of their fathers hence violating classical rules and that was termed as unfaithful by Ssu-ma Kuang. Other questioned and speculated ideas on brotherhood were brought up, for instance Ch’eng said that few people today know how to love their brothers. In ancient times sons and younger brothers complied with their fathers and elder brothers. Today fathers and elder brothers comply with their sons and young sons, this is because most let affection come before propriety and let kindness supplant righteousness. This paternal weakness gave birth to spoiled and unworthy sons who were disrespectful and uncooperative. Establishment of the today official rank unlike the classical takes precedence over geological seniority. That means the high officials established, and had their elder brothers and the latter’s descendants join as lesser members. Same way if the official’s eldest son had no rank, but a younger son had gained office, the younger one was vulnerable to designation this was an obligation same to that of offering sacrifices to their ancestors. Distinction between the elder and the younger has lost recognition since the rise of the current method of dividing residences which uses the principle of equality in order to avoid disputes. This is a failure to those who practice the method because it does not concern itself with whether or not on death the house will have an altar of recognition among the members. This calls for instability if the elder and the younger brothers divide their house by casting lots. Moreover, the articles allow a wife to succeed to her husband’s share and a daughter to succeed to her father’s share too unlike the ancient where established regulations existed whereby younger sons must honor their seniors and allow them to beg favors to be granted. In terms of economic efficiency in particular circumstances, the modern social scientists' description of the thinking of property-owning families. Like in the twentieth century, from peasants to businessmen and educated gentlemen often accord with principles of inheritance which prohibited inheritance by daughters. The coexistence of different sets of priorities concerning family matters exists today. For example, marriage is genuinely done by every son in the family unlike ancient. (Stenhard 2005). The intellectual mind saw a man that maintained his family well as that who had proper goal and was well intentioned. Good men succeeded in building up a family. It was through hard work that this family came to being. Such a family needed planning, honest dealings and such a man who succeeded in this way was envied among his peers. Such men did not just sleep their worries off, but they were always worried about their family slipping away in hunger and cold. A successful family had no time for laziness and irresponsibility. This meant that they cared less about their descendants. They were simply being selfish, (Bloom 2000). With more economies in the land, there was a new way of dealing with property and its administration. The intellect mind brought in new and better ideas of governing and relating in the Chinese family. Today there may lack existence of strong bounds for the families, but there are better concerned and have better economic backgrounds Bibliography De bary, W T., I Bloom, and J Arthur. "Chinese history." In Sources of Chinese Traditions, 2nd ed., 235-567. Columbia: Columia University Press, 2000. Mair, V H., N S. Stenhard, and P R. Goldin. "Chinese Culture." In Hawai'i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture , 1st ed., 243. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press , 2005. Owen, D. "An Anthology of Chinese Literature." In An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, 1st ed. Norton: W. W. Norton & Company , 1997. Patricia, E. "Conceptions of the Family in the Sung Dynasty." Journal of Asian Sturdy 43, no. 2 (1984): 219. Sullivan, M. "history of China Family." In The Arts of China, 5th ed., 234-879. china: University of California Press, 2009. Read More