Study On Jin Merchants' Family Ethic And Its Modern Value

The Shanxi merchants have made remarkable achievements and become the most powerful one among the top ten business groups for five hundred years.In the development process of Shanxi merchants,the family ethics thinking of Jin merchant was not only support its achievements,but was also the important source of Shanxi merchants spirit.Based on large number of historical document,the report takes the daily life of Shanxi merchants as the breakthrough point and discovers the modern value of Shanxi merchant family from the view of human relations.The report analyzes the family ethics thinking and its modern value from three chapters.Chapter one is about the background of Shanxi in the Ming and Qing dynasties.The commercial culture occupied an important position in the family ethics thinking,so the chapter analyzed the reason why they do business from the section one and section two.The first section introduces the the natural and cultural environment of Shanxi.Shanxi has small plain area,overpopulation,and the frequent occurrences of natural disaster,the most worse is over reclamation of the mountain had seriously damaged the ecological environment.So it is impossible to feed a large population depending on farming.But advantageous location,convenient transportation,rich natural resources such as coal,iron and salt,so many people went out for business.The second section introduces the system established in the early Ming Dynasty.People seized opportunity to develop rapidly with geographical advantages.The third section introduces Shanxi is one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization and has a long history,so,it is the fertile soil of Shanxi merchants' family ethics.The second chapter focuses on the the content of Shanxi merchant family ethics.The human relation is important in Chinese traditional society,this chapter elaborated the Shanxi family ethics form four aspects,including the filial piety,the couples,children,and dealing with affairs.The first section introduces that Jin merchant show filial piety and respect to their parents,they foster and respect to their parent and step-family.Jin merchant risen the piety to the national filial piety in the process of showing respect to their family.The second section introduces the common phenomenon of family marriage in Shanxi merchants family,the women of Jin merchants bear more family responsibilities at early period times of their business.Because of women were bounded by feudal ethic,they had to keep their virginity after their husband death.But in some rich family,the chastity had changed,women remarried for pursuit of happiness.The third section introduces the education of Shanxi merchants to their children.Jin merchants adhered the concept that if you study well,you should do business.They educated children through teaching their family and traditional culture,at the same time they paid attention to the cultivation of children' business skills.The fourth section introduces Jin merchants' view on how to live in the world.It can be summarized in three aspects,the first is that they love to do philanthropic work,the second is that they love to help partners and share weal and woe,the third is that they run school and gave children best education.The third chapter discusses the modern value of Jin merchants' family ethics.The first section analyzes that the family ethics provide guidance for Jin merchant,the second section analyzes that family ethics provide a reference for the cultivation of family traditions in modern families.The third section analyzes that family ethics has enlightenment significant for cultivation of profession ethics in modern society.