The Civil Service Examination,Family And The Local Society

The family was a traditional China's basic social unit which taking the blood relationship and marriage as the foundation composition community, it also was the cultural characteristic social organization. During the Sung Dynasty, the royal government selected massive emerging gentleman person by rigorous test procedure, as the civil service examination affected the national politics and the social lives more and more, the civil service examination became the main way to the official. Therefore, the civil service examination played an very important part in the rise and fall of the Family. In the Sung Dynasty, there was no doubt that the success in the civil service examination was essential, but it was very difficult to maintain the family prosperous by only depending on the civil service examination. Therefore, the family organizes, the condition of the family to be a public official, the marital circle,the friendships as well as managing the local society, also were quite important. This thesis will elaborate the Zhang, Dong, Yu and Cheng the four families' origin, distribution, the relation between the civil service examination and the family's development, and the principal means of the family's conformity. Then in view of the strategies such as the family organizes, the condition of the family to be a public official, the marital circle,the friendships as well as managing the local society in Dexing to make a thorough discussion, so that we can have a full and thorough understanding to the Dexing area. The contemplation on the Sung's civil service examinations hopes to delineate just such a more complete picture. The author finesse a wealth of primary sources such as the clan's pedigree, local gazetteers, collections of prose works, etc. to describe the forming and development of the Zhang, Dong, Yu and Cheng the four families during the Sung Dynasty. These primary sources enable the author to accurately trace the clan's full picture of Dexing during the Sung, and hope to know "the big history" by researching "the small place".