On The Change And Feature Of The Social Relief System In Tang-Song Era

The so-called social relief, is one kind of social securingsystems that the government and non-government provides the material aidson the lowest living level for the poor, and strengthens their socialsurvivability.Our country has a good tradition to save widowers, widows, orphans,the childless and the disabled since ancient times. People pursue the idealsociety that the old could be supported and the young raised. All previousdynasties rulers have formulated related policies and measures, and regardsthe social relief as the effective method to stability the social orderand consolidate the domination.But, before Tang-Song era, these policies and measures could notachieve the consummation, also were not one kind of institutional behavior.Therefore, whatever the relief scope or the relief degree, were notregularized. But in Tang-Song era, with the social economy development andthe prosperity, the material was relatively rich, and the governor attachedimportance to this relief, which enabled the relief in this era regularizedand institutional, and obtained rich experience. Even today, theseexperiences still have huge model significance.This article altogether is divided six major parts, the concretecontent is as follows:The first part discusses the introduction that mainly elaborates anddiscusses the research results which has achieved, the article significancewhy selected the topic, and then, plans to carry on the brief introductionon the research technique and the material.The second part discusses the change of the social relief system inTang-Song era for more than 600 years, mainly from two aspects: theinstitution of the relief organization and the enlarging of the relief funds. From three different stages in this historical period, this part statesthe proceeding of the social relief system and the developing situationof the relief funds from the simplification to the multiplex.The third part discusses the change of the social relief objects, andthe relief situation for five kinds of different social groups in Tang-Songera from government and non-government, and points out the tendency in thistime that the relief scope was expanded unceasingly, and think this tendencyas the performance which the social civilization progressed.The fourth part discusses the change of the main social relief strength,emphatically studied that different crowds played the main roles inTang-Song era, points out the tendency that the main social reliefstrength,played by the government, Confucianism and taonism,developedfive kinds of social strength.The fifth part discusses the basic structure of the social relief systemin Tang-Song era, emphatically from the political transformation, theeconomical transformation as well as the thought transformation and so on.With the social development and the political, economical progress, peopledeepened the understanding about the social relief, thus promoted theconsummation of the social system and the structure rationalization.The sixth part discusses the main characteristic and the historicalappraisal of Tang-Song era, mainly from the dominated relief strength andthe relief methods, analyzes the changing characteristic that the socialrelief system developed in Tang-Song era as well as the profound influencewhich produced to the later times.This article's characteristic mainly displays in following severalaspects: First, the former research mainly concentrates in providing faminerelief, even involving the social relief, also aims at some concrete methodsor the content which are restricted in short historical period, thus lacksthe comprehensive understanding about the various social relief inTang-Song era. This article comprehensively and systematically studieseach kinds of the social system in this historical period, and analyzesthe resource and mutual relationship related to the social relief system, thus clarifies the changing procedure in Middle Age as long as more than600 years.Second, this article proposes four characteristics of Tang-Song erafrom the vertical aspects: the main relief strength, the governmentorganization, the leading role. From Tang to Northern Song Dynasty, thegovernment relief was most important, after Southern Song Dynasty, localauthority's function was important more and more; The social strength wasalso playing the vital role in the concrete relief, including the socialindividual and the social organization, such as Sheyi, the family, thepatriarchal clan and so on, in which the family and the patriarchal clanhad very major function in the folk relief, specially Song Dynasty; In therelief methods, transforming from administrative to the marketability andthe socialized direction.Third, from the crosswise relations, the Tang-Song social relief alsopresented four characteristics: the relief scope from narrow to broad; fromthe disaster victims, the patient in earlier times to the old person, thechild, the woman, the orphans and widows, the disable, from the weak groupto the special crowd, from the birth and death to the weddings and funerals,had basically covered the human in each social stratum; Providing morerelief facilities, from Changping barn, Yi barn and so on in earlier timesto Huimin barn, Guanghui barn, Fengchu barn, She barn, Guangji barn,Zhengtiao barn, Zhouji barn and so on in two Song dynasty; From the solesickness work place to the Juyang bureau, Ciyou bureau, Anji bureau, Luzebureau and so on; The relief behavior tended to be institutional gradually;The marketable method increased.This article discusses the development of the relief system inTang-Song era from the macroscopic angle, emphatically researches the trendof ancient social relief system in this historical period, explores andsummarizes some regular things, promoted this research to carry onthoroughly. Some viewpoints and conclusions in this article are proposedfor the first time in the academic circles, which is advantageous forthorough discussion. The Tang-Song era obtained achievements in the social relief, whichwere beyond the before in many aspects. Even in Yuan, Ming and Qing, itsmain relief methods were originated or formulated in Song Dynasty. In all,the social relief enterprise in Tang-Song era occupied an important statusin ancient China, directly founded the basically pattern of the socialrelief for the later period of ancient China.