Landed gentry in China
The "gentry",or"landed gentry"in China was the elite who held privileged status through passing theImperial exams,which made them eligible to hold office. These literati, orscholar-officials,(shenshiThân sĩ orjinshenTấn thân ), also called sĩ thânshishen"scholar gentry" or hương thânxiangshen"local gentry", held a virtual monopoly on office holding, and overlapped with an unofficial elite of the wealthy. TheTangandSong dynastiesexpanded thecivil service examto replace thenine-rank systemwhich favored hereditary and largely militaryaristocrats.[1]As a social class they included retiredmandarinsor their families and descendants. Owning land was often their way of preserving wealth.[2]
Confucian classes
[edit]TheConfucianideal of thefour occupationsranked thescholar-officialabove farmers, artisans, and merchants below them in descending order, but this ideal fell short of describing society. Unlike acastethis status was not inherited. In theory, any male child could study, pass the exams, and attain office. In practice, however, gentry families were more able to educate their sons and used their connections with local officials to protect their interests.
Members of the gentry were expected to be an example to their community asConfucian gentlemen.They often retired to landed estates, where they lived on the rent fromtenant farmers.The sons of gentry aspired to pass theimperial examsand continue the family legacy. Bylate imperial China,merchants used their wealth to educate their sons in hopes of entering thecivil service.Financially desperate gentry married into merchant families which led to a breakdown of the old class structure.
With theabolition of the exam systemand the overthrow of theQing dynastycame the end of the scholar-official as a legal group.
20th century attacks on landlords
[edit]The imperial government and scholar-official system ended but the landlord-tenant system did not.New Cultureradicals of the 1920s used the term "gentry" to criticize land owners as "feudal".Mao Zedongled the way in attacking "bad gentry and local bullies" for collecting high rent and oppressing their tenants during theRepublican period.Many local landlords organized gangs to enforce their rule.Communist organizerspromised agrarian reform and land redistribution.
After thePeople's Republic of Chinawas established, many landlords were executed byclass struggletrials and the class as a whole was abolished. Former members were stigmatized and faced persecution which reached its heights during theCultural Revolution.This persecution ended with the advent ofChinese economic reformunderDeng Xiaoping.
See also
[edit]- Chinese nobility
- Society and culture of the Han dynasty
- Cabang Atas,the Chinese gentry of colonial Indonesia
- Dou dizhu,Chinese game of 'fighting the landlord'
References
[edit]- ^Brian Hook, ed.,The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China(Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed. 1991), p. 200ISBN052135594X
- ^Chang Chung-li [Zhongli Zhang],The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955).
Sources
[edit]- Elman, Benjamin A. (2009),"Civil Service Examinations (Keju)"(PDF),Berkeshire Encyclopedia of China,Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire, pp. 405–410