Research On Civil Disputes And Solutions In The Southeastern Region Of The Southern Sung

Civil disputes and their solution involving to grass-roots social order, legal culture and people's psychology can act as a mirror to reflect social change. Southeastern region of Southern Sung China has unique era and regional integration characteristics, which is an appropriate area for this kind research. In this dissertation, civil disputes and their solution were taken as an entry point to study the social change and legal culture in Southern Sung China.The litigious folk custom in Southeastern region of Southern Sung China was a prominent social phenomenon which was the result of not only social change, but also system. The understanding of litigious folk custom could reflect the conflicts between scholar-bureaucrat (Shi-dafu) ideas and social realities. Moreover, it was the basis of what strategy they would take in judgement. There were several factors that can affect lawsuit, such as the quality of scholar-bureaucrat, intervening in petty officials, and the development of investigation.The mediations of civil disputes include two approaches, official mediation and civil mediation. Official mediation was given priority to the family disputes, as well as neighborhood disputes, while official mediation showed a systematic tendency in Southern Sung China. Due to the consideration of litigation costs, grass-roots would prefer the civil mediation when they got into disputes. However, civil mediation had disadvantages, e.g., lacking of mandatory protection and often being used by rich and powerful people in country society called "Hao-min". Civil mediation could reflect the power configuration of country society and its order. However, according to scholar-bureaucrat's opinion, the country society led by Hao-min was in a disorder state, which exactly induced the Neo-Confucianism to make efforts to reconstruct the order of the county society.Folk religion was closely related to the disputes and their solution. On the one hand, the secularization of Buddhism and Taoism in Southern Sung Dynasty, as well as the special times, resulted in an increase in civil disputes between religious and common people. On the other hand, monks and Taoist priests were actively involved in the mediation of civil disputes. The influence of private religious beliefs on people can not be ignored. The government and officials regulated the folk religion; meanwhile, the two sides launched a competition. In this corelationship, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and folk religion merged continuously. In such social environment, what choices grass-roots would make in civil disputes, not only decided by a rational consideration on interest and the external environment, but also affected by their beliefs and personalities.