The Gathering And Dispersion Of A Family Of Imperial Examinations - The Study Of The Wu Family In Suzhou

DongJing Wu Family was a famous cultural and imperial examinations family of Suzhou in the period of Ming and Qing Dynasty.It has enjoyed its reputation in Suzhou,and has won a high social status which was established by its brilliant achievements in the imperial examinations.Wuxuan,the first ancestor of DongJing Wu Family,originally surnamed Shen.For he has registered in his maternal line,Family Wu has been established and engaged themselves in imperial examinations pass from generation to generation.During the Ming and Qing Dynasty,there were 8successful candidates in the higest imperial examinations and 19 provincial canidates.Meanwhile,it has also been one of the scholar-famiies who has achieved double-scholar(Wutingchen and Wuzhongjun)in Suzhou.As the development of its achievements in the imperial examinations,DongJing Wu Family has established its extended marriage and political social network.For examples,the famous families such as Changzhou Peng family,Dafu Pan Family,Suzhou Wang Family And Yundong Han Family has all been married with DongJing Wu Family.As a big amily with a history of over a few hundred years,its population and regularity give its own representative.According to the quantitative statistics of the population of DongJing Wu Family,the childbearing age of men is about 30,against to the women is about 27,with 30 years as a interval of one generation.Regarding to the construction of the life span,the average age of men is 42 to 46,while of women is 46 to 52,with a remarkable high rate of elders.As to the family scale,there are mainly core families and stem families.Moreover,the quantity of the descendants has an intimate connection of the social reputation.As for the regulation of its population,there was an low increase tendency in Qing Dynasty,and the influence of the war and natural disasters on the population was obvious in the late Qing dynasty.It had an active attitude in the construction and protection of its family organizations.As we can see,from 1628 to 1915,it has compiled its geneaology at least seven times.What's more,the fifth generation,Wuzhiliang has set six hundred acres of land as sacrificing lands and family lands.They have also established their family temple in 1648,which has created an organization to hold their family cults.However,there is distance between the ideal and reality,compared with the high-placed geneaology and the unpractical temples,family land has played animportant role in solidifing the family tie.While since late Qing Dynasty and the Republic China,with the warfare,the abolish of the imperial examinations and the social reforms,its family organizations and family conception has experienced severe strike.Therefore,Dongjing Wu Family has been declining.Although they have extended their famliy land and reset sacrificing lands after the Taiping War,they have turned a new direction of their family education.Therefore,many of their family members have chosen law,education,science,medicine or so as their lifelong career.They have devoted themselves in a new occupation,and finally been alienated with their family organizations and family conception weakened.As far as we can see from the course of the development of the DongJing Wu Family,the change of the regime has a direct influence on the vicissitude of the imperial examinations family.While the interaction between the local society,cultural concept and the families have complicated the course of its vicissitude.