The Evolution And Development Of Agricultural Familiesin The Eastern And Westernzhou Dynasties

The evolution and development of agricultural families in the Eastern and Western ZhouDynasties experienced two periods-the Western Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn periodand the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The Spring and Autumn period wastransitional, so it was reflected in both of these periods.The agricultural families’ management and development condition in the WesternDynasty and the previous intermediate Spring and Autumn period mainly manifested in fouraspects: agricultural families’ production base, agricultural families’ organization pattern,agricultural families’ life dependence and population movement and agricultural families’ideology. Through the analysis and summary of these four aspects, the author thought that atthat time, the labors who dissociated the family were pure labor force, the farmers and peasantwomen served the farmland of royal families and aristocrat paddies in the form of corveerespectively. In fact, the agricultural family in name was only a reserve labor forceorganization and the productive labor in the unit of family was unusual. Although the familyorganization had formed, the rich connotation about the agricultural families was stillunder-developed.The agricultural families in the Warring States period had the small peasant economymeaning. The factors such as war, political reform and patriarchal concept all urged theagricultural families to a higher stage. The performance of the transformation was shown inthe family interior changes: the relative solidification of the divided work between men andwomen, intensive family sense and the separation of the handicraftsmen and gentlemen fromthe family and so on. These changes with the external factors, the important expressions of theform of small peasant economy, influenced the agricultural families’ transformation.