Essay on China: Family and Political Reformers

Submitted By lacey20
Words: 798
Pages: 4

In the sixteenth century of China there was a fair and balanced, head of a house hold. This was important in the Ming and Qing-eras. Having a fair and balanced, head of a house hold help make order in the family and create rules they had to follow. This was a way for them to put someone in control and decide who gets what land and who was poor or rich in a way. The Ming and Qing-eras was a very unique time for China. In China they started to admire the western ways of living instead of indigenous practices. Ba Jin was a modest writer at the time and spoke for many of the people in his writings. He adopted the point of view of the west in his writings and explained that he thought that the Confucian family was evil because of how they lived there life. Political reformers argued that the traditional family had to be destroyed before China could start living the western ways. Ba Jin looked to the west because he saw the individuals were recognized and people had legal rights and freedom. This is what he and the political reformers wanted for China. There was twos ways of living you were either poor and had a small family normally farmers who grew their own crops to feed their family because they couldn’t afford to buy crops. These family’s consisted of about three to six members. Then you had the rich who had huge family’s that sometimes got up to a hundred people living in one residence. How’s this works is the boys that are born in the family say with their original parents and there wife’s. The girls would marry and join another family. This went on until the family was huge. They boys were the owners of the land they would split it up between all of them. The people that lived in this areas had to be very wealthy and have good jobs to make. They normally had helper’s to-do all the farming, cleaning, cooking and yard work. This way they could focus on their jobs and family. Both kinds of family’s started respecting their elders since they were older and would pass down what they had to they family after they had passed. They called tis behavior Xiao which was often translated as filiality or filial piety. This was also because in their eyes deference to caring for family members. This family’s learned to care and help each other. Also one other type of family would be a zu or a lineages. This was a small family as well. What happens is the on married son normally the oldest would start at home with his parents. Since family decent was traced in a certain way back then they viewed the father and the eldest son as the core of the family and would be the stem or trunk for the family tree. The zu families to have a descended on the male side from a common ancestor. They viewed themselves as natural kinsmen. They were normally in charge of family affairs and