Livelihood And Morality: The Livelihood Options Of A Scholar Called Xu Wei Of The Jiangnan Area In The Middle And Late Ming Dynasty

Scholar was Xu Wei’s highest Imperial fame throughout his life. He had failed to pass the imperial examination to win fame eight times facing the stagnation of the imperial examination and severe competition. When he was 46 years old, he was imprisoned for murdering his wife and his identity of scholar was taken away, which was a great blow to him for his career, because he held the social values that "a good scholar will make an official". The way of traditional imperial examination was completely broken, he was once self-confident, then he became full of grief and indignation took the failure to heart. As a scholar, he could just gain certain income from county government office at the age of 32.Source of livelihood became an imperative question. In the late Ming Dynasty, the development of society and economy had provided these scholars such as Xu Wei with opportunities for survival. Also, Xu Wei had good cultural accomplishment and a better mastery of the art of article, poetry, calligraphy, painting, which he could make a living at.Based on Xu Wei, this paper will focus on the livelihood options of the scholars in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, explore the existence predicament the scholars were facing at,methods they would deal with it, ways to make a living, the effect of earning a living and so on, then try to restore the real mentality of the scholars and their survival condition.Being a teacher, selling his paintings and calligraphy works, being an assistant to a ranking official and so on, Xu Wei had been adjusting the identity and ways to make a living constantly. However, he always lived in poverty died in a house of his in-laws at the age of 73 because he did not good at making a living. In fact, the ancient Chinese public opinion and social values in the pursuit of the interests of the commercial activities forced the scholars such as Xu Wei to retreat from something related to seeking benefits, which contrasted with the outstanding personality of being contented in poverty and devoted to things spiritual. Xu Wei was caught between make a living and maintaining independent personality. This kind of dilemma was a difficult problem faced by the whole scholars, which resulted in a universal poverty of this group.