The Interaction Of Family Construction And Personal Development Of Fujian In Mingqing Period

Resting upon genealogies from coastal region of Fujian province, the essay tries to illustrate that local families exerted an essential and favorable influence on the social interactions involving individuals, families, clans and the society in Ming and Qing dynasty, in which education was fundamental for the function of familial organizations and played an important role in enhancing the status of families and even the local society, and the enhancement of families formed the basic guarantee for the harmonious development of the local society.The essay is composed of the following parts:The introduction brings forward the reasons for choosing the issue and give a brief introduce about the previous academic researches, the concepts, materials, and approaches implemented in this essay.Chapter one focuses on the basic scope of family cohesion, that is "San-Dai Er-Fu" (Three generations and Two grades of relatives), in which clansmen cooperated, the family provided favorable environment for individual development and progenitors passed down essential life experience and successfully fostered righteous individual ethics and favorable collective spirits as well.Chapter two demonstrates the economic and social behaviors in the process of the family cohesion and development, focusing on the population mobility, marriage into and living with wife's family and friends of lineage members, and analyses the influence of which to the establishment of lineage and social order.Chapter three explores the educational function for the enhancement of traditional families and the status promotion of families and local society. I argue that educational functions, which helps the individual pursuing fame and civil service, was the fundamental approach for the enhancement of families, as well as the basic guarantee for the establishment of the local social orders.Chapter four analyzes the significant influence of education on the development of families, through a detailed example of marriage circle comparison between Qian Branch and Zhen Branch in Yuncheng Lin Clan.