The Tradition And Modern Of Clan

Clan refers to a group of ties of blood, in which people living in communities own common parental relative, common land property and common ancestral temples, offer sacrifices to common ancestors, even to the extent that they have common graveyards, etc. Clan is the basic component part of Chinese traditional countries. It exists and develops in Han nationality as well as in other nationalities of China. In the history of Chinese social development, clan has a far-reaching influence with a long history. In this aspect, no non-governmental organization can compare with it. Its development and influence are indispensable to research the changes of politics in Chinese countryside. However, there are always two different points of view on clan: minority is for it; majority is against it. Through stating the progress of clan's historical changes this paper analyzes the logical law of clan's emergence, development, rise and fall, and also analyzes the historical courses and present situations of clan's revitalization. It makes a conclusion that it is beneficial for the construction of new countryside to revive and develop clan in the countryside at the present.The body of the paper divides into five parts.First of all, from the broad angle of history, this paper analyzes clan's position and functions: the rulers controlled their dynasties'politics by political power and social basis by clan power, so that clan gave social play to controlling local areas as local governments'organizational power. Clan became a social group only prior to administrative bureaucracy, and played an important role as the component part of feudal countries and social basis. In the progress of analyzing clan's position and functions, the paper introduces the current situation and existing problems of research on clan.