Study On The Division Of Documents Collected In Yunnan Provincial Museum From Early Qing Dynasty To The Republic Of China

Families,as common grass roots organizations in human society,are cells that constitute society.It's inevitable to separate when family develops into a certain scale.Family separation is a process in which a large family in traditional family is divided into many small families.The separation marks the division of the old family and the birth of the new families.And meanwhile,it's also the main way to inheriting the property in the family.Property is divided equally between generations.Family separation is very common in the countryside.It is not only a traditional custom that has known for thousands of years,but also a rational choice to ease family conflicts.Family separation is not only an important content about Chinese family system,but also an important way to understand family system,local clan and social change.The document of family separation is completed under the witness of the clan after separation.It express the agreement among participants joined this separation.It's also a record that recorded the admitted division of the property and a proof that has force of law.In recent years,scholars mostly use the first-hand folk documents such as Huizhou document,Qingshuijiang documents in Ming and Qing dynasties to study the local division since Ming and Qing dynasties.According to different disciplines,their research perspectives are divided into sociology,anthropology,law,history,economics and so on.The research of each subject may be intersected,and more academic achievements have been published at present.However,the research on the family separation in Yunnan area is still relatively few,which needs to be supplemented.In 2013,the Institute of Ancient Chinese Economic History of Yunnan University and the Yunnan Museum jointly organized and published "The Arrangement and Compilation of Contract Documents in Yunnan Museum Collection",which is the first time that the contract documents of Yunnan Province were officially released systematically.Although the separate documents are only a small part of them,they add new historical materials to the study of family history in Yunnan.It is the textual characteristics,historical habits,influence about family separation,family structure and social change in Yunnan province written in this book that provides new research directions for academic circles.The research on the family separation in Yunnan area-mainly using the method of literature interpretation,based on the investigation and analysis of its writing form and text content on the collections about family separation in the Yunnan Provincial Museum-makes a systematic induction and in-depth interpretation of Yunnan family documents:after a long period of development,family separation books in Yunnan have formed a certain normative writing program in which writing,language,and form show the trend of styling.Besides,the way of dividing families,the third party group,and the special share in the books have historical traditions and regional characteristics.And the separation influence the rural economy,clan society,traditional culture and so on.Through in-depth discussion of the above problems,we hope to provide historical reference for current folk customs of family separation,family conflicts,property disputes,harmonious society,rural governance,and so on.