Qing Dynasty Control Of Rural Society

The control of social order often depends on statute law formulated by government and customary regulation followed by folk. And the latter is called folk law in the sense of legal sociology. In ancient Chinese societies, there are various kinds of folk laws except feudal national laws which are relatively unified. And among them, clan laws have played an important role. China's feudal regimes always regard county-level administrative organs as the basic units, which makes governments can not effectively control the social order in rural areas. In order to maintain rule order, the ruling class has to hand over the duty of maintaining rural social order to clan parents. With the approval and support of feudal country law, the clan elders take the responsibility of maintaining family and social order. The reason why clans can get permission and support from the country is that clan and country are somehow identical in nature. There is a slight difference between the two—family and country, but they both need to maintain social order within certain boundary.In order to maintain clan's security and social order as well as protect individual interests, clans formulate norms and regulations with general binding force, according to Confucian principles, social ethics and feudal national laws. The power of clan and country is the safeguard of enforcement. Clan rule, domestic discipline, family courtesy, rule of the shrine, family precept and family education are altogether called clan law. Clan law in legal sociology sense develops from Song Dynasty, which is different from patriarchal systems in political sense. Clan law develops rapidly under special protection of government and reaches its heyday in Qing Dynasty. In this period, clan law makes great progress in legislative content, legislative technology and way of expression.In content, it involves all respects of clan life, including marriage relations, inheritance relations, property relations, family relations and some criminal legal relations. Clan organization in Qing Dynasty is well-formed and is the model of ancient Chinese societies. Therefore I plan to take clan law of this period as my research object, hoping to clearly analyze the formulation and operation of Qing's clan law and then to understand the forming and control of rural social order. Through further research on clan law of Qing Dynasty, we can better understand the essence of modern social clans, which is also important to law research and judicial practice.In this thesis, chapter one is "the control mode and clan law of rural society in Qing Dynasty ". At beginning, I will give a brief introduction about rural governance and government interference of Qing Dynasty. It is mainly from three aspects, i.e. government control and management over rural areas—the Bao-Jia system, management of folk squires and clans in rural society. Secondly, I will discuss "the definition and connotation of the clan", analyze clan's concept and historical development and then describe clan law's concept and characteristics. Chapter two "clan law becomes control tool of rural society" focuses on two major factors that country acknowledges clan law and people support it. Chapter three "clan law's adjustment effect to rural social order in Qing Dynasty" ail-roundly expounds clan law's function in order control of rural life from aspects of inheritance, marriage and clan life. Chapter four "clan law's value and inspiration to modern society" discusses clan law's decline and revival, and also analyze its positive effects on contemporary social development as well as rural life order.