Sui

1
Sui Tang Dynasties, 581-907

• And Chinese Family Structure

2
Sui Dynasty

• The reunification process
• From Northern Wei to Northern Zhou to Sui (589
  AD), as results of coup detat
• Sui Wendi controlled the north first, and
  succeeded in unifying the south
• Sui Yangdi came to the throne and lost the
  mandate. Why?
• The bias of Confucian historians

3
Sui Rulers measures of centralization

• The perennial problem of central authority v.
  local/regional authorities
• Sui rulers made local office appointment the
  imperial prerogative
• The rule of avoidance no appointment to ones
  native place
• The beginning of civil service examination
• State-operated granaries social welfare and
  central financial benefit
• The Grand Canal project firming the north-south
  link
• Military expeditions against Central Asia Korea
• The victims of their success?

4
Tang Dynasty the golden age of Chinese ancient
civilization

• The founding emperors from Tang Gaozu to Tang
  Taizong (629-49)
• The Confucian view of a wise emperor and the
  ruler-subject relations
• The case of Wei Zhen
• The perfection of imperial government
  bureaucracy
• six ministries personnel, revenue, rites, war,
  justice, public works
• The tension between the inner and outer imperial
  courts

5
Tang Gaozong (650-83) and Empress Wu (683-706)

• The weak emperor and his able wife a recipe for
  disaster in Confucian viewpoint. Was it true?
• Evaluating Empress Wu Was she an evil person?
  An able ruler/ politician? Or both? You opinion
  please.
• Her ways to legitimize her rule
• Promoting Buddhism (Maitreya sect)
• Promoting civil service examination to recruit
  officials on the basis of merits

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7
Tang Xuanzong a man of estheticism(713-756)

• Li familys revenge and power restoration upon
  Wus death
• Xuanzongs talents and early achievements
• His love for horses, poetry, painting, and beauty
  
• The turning point of his reign romantic
  association with Ms. Yang (Guifei, honored
  concubine)
• Yang Guozhong, Guifeis brother, appointed as
  chancellor
• An Lushan rebellion (755) forced the imperial
  courts flee from Changan
• The death of the Yangs and the general
  deterioration of governance
• fragmentation and the Later Tang period, leading
  to the Song Dynastys unification in early 900s
• Chinese concept of feminine beauty

8
Feminine Beauty Empress Cixi in 1900 (left)
picture on silk, 200s B.C. (right)
9
Tangs Cosmopolitan Cultural Achievements

• Changan, the capital, was a planned city, a
  political cultural center, changan0012.jpg with
  30 sq. miles, 2 million population its central
  avenue was 500 ft wide, (in comparison to
  Vatican)
• Dotted with religious establishments Buddhist,
  Daoist as well as Manichean, Nestorian temples
  (religious tolerance?)
• Economic cultural exchange with the West the
  Silk Roads
• Silk, china, Chinese technologies moving westward
  with profound impact in Europe
• Western things in China with a xi (west)
  prefix watermelon as west-melon (xi-gua)
  

10
Chinese Family

• Family as a social unit
• Economic unit for purposes of taxation, property
  ownership, and as a working unit
• Division of labor male working the field, female
  spin/weaving
• The paradox of family self-sufficient economy and
  the market economy
• Social security unit to care for the aging
  members
• Religious unit for ancestor-worshiping and other
  rituals

11
Filial piety as the foremost virtueWas this an
ancient means of propaganda?
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13
The Cult of Familism

• Family as a microcosm of the state emperor as
  the father figure of the nation county magister
  known as the father/mother official
• To be a good son is the foundation to be a good
  subject/official
• The cult is sanctioned by secular authorities
  such as the Tang Legal Codes, the above-mentioned
  carvings, as well as by religious belief and
  practice, such as the ancestors warship
• The consequences family ties as the most
  important guanxi (personal ties/relationships)
  de-personalized inter-personal relations

14
Womens Status in Family and Society

• A male-dominated structure as in most past and
  present patriarchal/patrilineal cultures
• Neo-Confucianism (14th cent.) demanded female
  virginity chastity
• Social invisibility as a rule in pre-modern China
• Foot-binding, a practice symbolizing womens
  place in the family and society
• The term of nei-ren (the person inside) as
  standard for husband to introduce his wife

15
A Womans Life Circle

• Birth as an unwanted or less than welcome member
  to the family, except the first new-born (why?)
• Infanticide in 1851-1948 5 of total new-born
  female v. 2.5 of male
• Todays babies for foreign adoption 100 female
• Childhood as an apprentice of domestic duties
  cooking, washing, etc. while no formal education
  accorded (double standard in expectation)
• Early marriage and its forms infancy-wife, a
  cheap way to marry off a daughter go-between
  match-making without the bride-to-bes consent
• The difficulties as a daughter-in-law living in a
  new household and the significance of giving
  birth to a male child
• enduring twenty bitter years as a
  daughter-in-law will turn one into a
  mother-in-law
• The high status of a matriarch if she lives a
  long life with successful sons and grandsons
• Child upbringing from indulgence to strict rules
  around age 5