The Adjustment Of Village Convenances To Patriarchal Clan Interests In Ming And Qing Dynasties

In the folk society of the Chinese ancient times, besides the state code, what played more important function in the ruling is the great number of village convenances. In the sense of the majority of people living in the form of clans, it is of great significance to have a special sight into the role of the village convenances playing in the adjustment to the clan interests.The first part of this paper is devoted to have a bird view on the birth and development of the village convenances as a folk law, in this way to outline the complete process of the development of village convenances from its birth in Song Dynasty to its mature stage in Ming and Qing period. On this base, by selecting some existing village convenances of Ming and Qing period as the research objectives, on which a detailed study is made to analyze the mechanism of the adjustment to clan interests. This part also has a brief introduction to the various forms and the classification of the village convenances. In addition, the clan interest going to be studied here is classified into two aspects: the inner-clan individual interest and the overall clan interest as a whole.The second part is about the adjustment by village convenances to the inner-clan individual interest. It is started with a definition on the term,"the inner-clan individual interest". In the traditional Chinese society, there is no an obvious boundary between the concept family and the concept clan. Not only the clan has a big functional influence on the family in terms of purchasing real estate, relieving disaster, the education, taxes and military service and even weddings and funerals but also being an individual of the clan, the family's social relations, life value and social status is closely related to the complicated network of clan relations. But in the people's daily life, the entities really living together are the independent families having actual economic relations. Therefore, "the individual interest" this part is going to discuss in fact refers to the interest regarding the family's the inner-clan life and external social relations, etc. with a patriarch being the family head. In order to make a clear analysis, the adjustment to individual interest is studied respectively from two aspects, the inner-clan relations and relations between clans. The inner-clan relations are divided into ethic relations under normal state and the disputing with prosecution relations under abnormal state. The ethic relations is discussed in the following several aspects in detail, namely the sacrificial offering relation, the marital relation, the inner-clan trade relation and the military-service taken relation. Trough the analysis, a fact is known that there is both cooperation and conflict between the individual interests of different families, therefore it requires the village convenances to have a sytemetic regulation on the relative circumstances thus to help different families have better cooperation and dissolve the conflict. The inner-clan disputing with prosecution relation is conducted under two principles, named mediating dispute inside the clan to avoid prosecuting to the government legislatives and prosecuting to the government authorities to ask for the mediating dispute. These two big principles also are the reflection of the traditional idea "no prosecution", much less lawsuits occurs in a clan inside. The relations between clans have two aspects, the clan members'social relations outside the clan and the overall regulation on the clan members'social relation with other clans as a whole. The clan members'social relation with other clans'members is analyzed from two perspectives, the trade relations and the regulation on inheriting the property and the family name by an outsider with different family name. These two cases are very typical at that time. The two cases can well tell us that although the members of clans with different family names live in different clans, to meet the need of the actual life, they still have some essential economic relations and ethic relations.At the very beginning of the third part, a definition on the overall clan interest is given and then an investigation into the adjustment of village convenances to the overall clan interest is made from three perspectives which are clan sacrificial offering and worshiping the God, genealogy compiling and the family names unification, as well as the establishment of clan land, free houses and schools. The analysis can revel that the objective of the clan activities is consistent that is protecting the overall clan interest. These points can state how far the clan has developed and organized and also show that clan activities are undergoing protection from higher levels in terms of system and ideas, etc. and the clan organizations are strengthened. All these prove the form of clans is transforming from a community of relatives mainly representing the genealogic relations to a social organization stressing functional operation.From the specific analysis on the village convenances of Ming and Qing Dynasties, a conclusion could be found that village convenances of Ming and Qing as a non-official regulation played a very important role in keeping the social order of the folk. Its so detailed content and broad influencing scope in adjustment are amazing. The realistic interests concerning people's everyday life are all adjusted by such convenances. By making so many village convenances, the clan organizations effectively propagandize the feudal ethics, keep feudal rules and strengthen the clan organizations themselves. No matter how to comment on the role the village convenances played, it is no doubt that it does have a systematic function in the feudal society.