In The Late Ming Jiangnan Society And Social Life

In the perspective of the regional social cultural study this dissertation reviews and discusses deeply and widely the series changes emerged in the social lives in the Jiangnan Delta during the period of mid and late Ming Dynasty with the purpose to post the origins and the historical meanings of those changes in terms of the region as the whole country.Firstly from the spatial-temporal angles of the history and the region this dissertation reviews and analyses the politics, economy, society, culture, traditional customs, and the ecological environment in the Jiangnan Delta in order to argue that the changes in this area during the period of mid and late Ming Dynasty can not be summed up as a single or any individual momentum, but should be treated as the result of the multi-momentums. Secondly through probing into the family structure and relationship among family members, the development of the kindred organization and the social function, and the thrive of folk association and the impact of them this dissertation opens out that there were violent movements and obvious changes in the traditional social relationship with the core of social stratification during the period. Thirdly, it also studies the social lives in the Jiangnan Delta at that time from the different angles and different perspective. From the phenomenon of pursuing luxury material lives it is easy to see the track of the social change at that time. And it has also been proved that the traditional rules of the social stratification and ritual institutions were facing great challenge by all the other changes in the ceremony of marriage and death, as well as by the changes in the social rites and even in the sex lives. The multi-directions in life styles and their impact on the festival customs, folk believing, temple rites, popular arts and literature, etc. revealed the new values in aesthetics and the interaction between the elite culture and the common culture which contained the very rich and important social meanings. Finally this dissertation discusses and analyses the idea of increasing regional power and the efforts to protect regional rights in the circle of intellectuals represented by Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi. With this analysis it points out that in the period of mid and late Min Dynasty there were inimitable economic, social, cultural and individual developments in the Jiangnan Delta with obvious regional characteristics quite differing from other parts in the country. All these developments companied the identity for the regional advantage and regional life style, which caused strength of regional concept. At the same time the "richer people" formed mainly by the country gentlemen and the merchants had grown to some extent who began to declare the right of sharing part of the power from the emperor, which shaped certain centrifugal tendency in the traditional political structure.It shows clearly from all the review and analysis in this dissertation that the social changes in the Jiangnan Delta during that period were deep and wide, in which some modern elements had been emerged slowly or appeared vaguely. Thus we can say that there was real partial metamorphosis in the whole traditional social structure. However, it is necessary to point out that the social changes mentioned above happened under special spatial-temporal conditions, such as far away from northeast border clashes and peasants' uprisings, located in a comparative peaceful area and in a relax social environment with the weakening of the central authoritarian power and the losing control of the traditional rules. While as soon as all these conditions with which all the individual developments in the Jiangnan Delta disappeared while the strong hierarchy order once again was re-built, the changes differing from the old rules would tend to be slower and even be stopped. From the other aspect we can also see that some further social disorders caused by some disturbances merged in the period of losing control of the traditional rules, which led to a series o...