Research Of Structures Of Hunan Province Population In The Qing Dynasty

During the early period of the Qing Dynasty when Hunan Province was set up, the explosive population growth once occurred. And from the middle period of the Qianlong Period and to the Daoguang Period, the population still increased very fast. However, from the Daoguang Period to the end years of the Qing Dynasty, it slowed down. On the whole, the population in Hunan Province increased very quickly during the early and middle periods of the Qing Dynasty and in the latter period it slowed down.The increase and decrease of the population has close relations with the political and economic conditions of the region. In the Qing Dynasty, the population center was Changsha city, and the dense population areas also included the areas along the Xiangjiang River with Hengyang city as the population focus, the northern areas around the Dongtinghu Lake with Yueyang city as the population focus, the central areas along the Zijiang River with Baoqing city as the focus, and Changde city and Lizhou city in the South of Hunan Province. Comparatively, the population in the West and Southwest of Hunan Province where were mountainous areas was small.Due to the influence of farming economy and feudal law and religious system, the notion of"emphasizing men, belittle women"and the merciless act of drowning the female babies had existed for a long time in Chinese history. Thus, the number of man is larger than that of woman and the phenomenon that the proportion of man and woman is seriously unharmonious existed for a long period of time .The scale of the family refers to the average number of family members. According to the number criterion, the family can be categorized into big family and small family. In Hunan Province in the Qing Dynasty the family structure mainly included the following types: core family, lineal family, combined family and broken family and so on. From the point of the marriage condition, the average marriage age is comparatively early. Generally men could marry at the age of 16 and women at the age of 14. The wealth and social position were greatly stressed in marriage at that time . The rich generally would not marry the poor. As to the marriage relationship, the feudal notions of"marry one man till he died without remarrying","starving to death is a small matter but losing chastity is a deadly matter"were propagated widely and deeply rooted in people's mind. Hunan Province in the Qing Dynasty is a multi-nationality province. Besides the Han Nationality, there were many ethnic nationalities, such as Miao Nationality, Tujia Nationality, Yao Nationality, Dong Nationality, Hui Nationality, Weiwuer Nationality, Zhuang Nationality, Bai Nationality and so on. Some of them were the local aboriginals and some others immigrated from other provinces. They all had a long history. From the point of distribution, the ethnic nationalities mainly lived in the mountainous areas of the West and Southwest of Hunan Province while the Han Nationality mainly lived in the areas of centre of Hunan, Dongting Lake Plain and South of Hunan . In the Qing Dynasty, it is mainly the Han Nationality population that increased, however, meanwhile, the population of the ethnic nationalities also increased with different levels.