Name : Jishnita Ghosh

History Hons, 3rd Year

DSE B1-CHINA ASSIGNMENT
DATE:18/12/21
ROLE OF GENTRY IN PRE MODERN CHINA
Ans: As China grew larger during the Song, a social structure became established that
lasted in its general outline until the twentieth century. Upper-class families dominated
Chinese life so much that sociologists have called China a gentry state, and even ordinary
people may speak of the “scholar-gentry” as a class.
The Chinese gentry, as their institutions developed from the Song period down to the Qing,
can be understood only in a dual economic and political sense as connected both with land-
holding and with degree-holding. A narrower definition would assign gentry status to those
individuals who held degrees gained normally by passing examinations, or sometimes by
recommendation or purchase. This narrow definition has the merit of being concrete and even
quantifiable—the gentry in this sense were scholarly degree-holders, as officially listed, and
not dependent for their status on economic resources, particularly landowning, which is so
hard to quantify from the historical record.
Gentry society was based on familism, which was dominated by the men within it. Women
were inferior creatures, relatively expendable, who were usually married into other families.
The gentry’s aim was to preserve the family’s elite status by training sons to become scholars
and degree-holders. Under Neo-Confucianism the training of a young scholar from childhood
was strong on discipline and perhaps shorter on affection. Self-control and unselfish hard
mental work tended to crowd out frivolity, sexuality, muscular development, and even
spontaneity. Testimony collected by Jon Saari from late Qing scholars paints a rather grim
picture of education in gentry families.
The gentry as individuals served as public functionaries, playing political and administrative
roles. Yet they were also enmeshed in family relations, on which they could rely for material
sustenance. This political–economic dualism has led many writers to define the term gentry
more broadly, as a group of families rather than of individual degree holders only. Both the
narrow and the broad definitions must be kept in mind.
They were the local elite, who carried on certain functions connected with the farming
populace below and certain others connected with the officials above. In the agricultural
community, the gentry included the big landowners, whose high-walled compounds
enclosing many courtyards, replete with servants and hoarded supplies and proof against
bandits, dominated the old market towns. This was the type of “big house” celebrated in both
Chinese and Western novels of China. As a local ruling class, the gentry managed the system
of customary and legal rights to the use of land.
If a poor man could pass the examinations, he could become a member of the gentry in the
narrow sense used above, even though he was not connected with a land-owning family.
Nevertheless, the degree-holding individuals were in most cases connected with land-owning
families, and land-owning families had degree-holding members. In general, the gentry
families were the out-of-office reservoir of the degree-holders and the bureaucracy.
The gentry class is categorised by J. Chesneaux as a scholar official ruling class which
possessed power, knowledge and land. This was the product of ancient "AsiaticTradition",
where a class was defined by three aspects of its position— political, economic and
educational. According to Hsu, the gentry class was composed of scholars who had passed
the government examination but were not part of the ruling bureaucracy. They acted as
intermediaries between the local magistrates and the people; and in this capacity they enjoyed
considerable social prestige and privileges. Fairbank sees the gentry class in a dual sense—
economic and political, in connection with landholding and office holding position. It was a
status confined to those individuals who had passed, purchased or were recommended for the
official degrees by the government. They were not dependent for their status on economic
resources, particularly landowning. They represented politico-economic dualism because as a
local elite they performed certain functions connected with peasantry who were below them
and for officials who were above them. It is this dualism, according to Fairbank. which has
led many scholars to define the term gentry as a group of families rather than independent
degree holders.
The need to create this new class of gentry arose from the fact that from early Han to Qing
dynastic period, territorial administrative structure did not grow while the population
increased to a considerable extent and expanded to other areas. Therefore, in the Tang period,
this new gentry class was created to fill the vacuum between the early bureaucratic state and
the Chinese society. The gentry class maintained its domination through four media— by
owning land, by performing official functions, by being educated, and by being proficient in
the Chinese language. Passing the three level examination was considered as the highest
achievement possible in traditional Chinese society. In this way, according to Fairbank, the
structure of the gentry class was flexible, automatically self-perpetuating and stable.
The scholar-gentry class was required to perform certain functions including:
1. collection of taxes and other levies;
2. construction and maintenance of hospitals,irrigation projects, local shrines and upholding
Confucian ideals, institutions and morals;
3. acting as unofficial arbitrators in disputes that people wanted to settle outside the
courtroom;
4. acting as intermediaries between local people and administration to maintain peace. They
organised militia in times of need;
5. to maintain peace, order and look after general welfare of their locality. This task was in
the interest of the ruling class to avoid any crisis.