The Shanxi Businessman's Household And Its System Changes

During the period of Ming and Qing dynasty , Shanxi's businessmen rose in the Chinese commence .In nearly five hundred years ,they did transaction with internal or external people and became the most successful merchants of that time. With the strengthening of their capital power and the extending of their commence, the family of Shanxi's businessmen gradually became one of the most important part of the career of Shanxi's businessmen. At the same time, the family institution of Shanxi's businessmen began to form .In the thesis, the theory of cost-profit and institution economic will be used to analysis the reasons , the civilianize background and the economic condition of the family institution of Shanxi's businessmen .Then recount the changes of the family institution.At the beginning, for the symmetry was not exist about the information , the cost of cooperation with strangers was very high ,while the cost of cooperation with the partners who came from the same family was lower .So Shanxi's businessmen founded their commercial organizations by the relative relationship .Then the huge families and the institutions of Shanxi's businessmen gradually formed .The whole family institution of Shanxi's businessmen was split into five parts .including Paternal line ,property right and right of succession inherit ,marriage ,education and the status of women and so on .There was a tight relationship between the family institutions and the commence of Shanxi's businessmen. So the commercial actions were the basic reason of the changes of the family institutions.