South AsianFamily, Society, and

Polity

October 24, 2013

ReviewWhat is the difference between Northern Song and Southern Song?

Who are the literati? What does their emergence tell us about government and society during the Song?

What was the status of women in Song China?

Why did the Song fail to make the transition to an industrial revolution?

What is Neo-Confucianism?

The family in South AsiaTrautmann, pp.86-91

• patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal (Trautmann, pp. 87-89)

• extended membership, joint property ownership

• marriages were arranged and indissoluble, and exogamous.

• Women brought a dowry into their marriage.

• Ritual homage to ancestors was important.

South Indian differencesTrautmann, 92-93

• There were some matrilineal families in South India, particularly in Kerala and among the Tamils.

• In parts of South India, marriage exogamy sometimes was modified by a preference for marriages between cousins.

Social StructureTrautmann, pp.94-97

A segmented society: caste (varna and jati)• A caste society is one that is segmented, with the segments hierarchically arranged and endogamous.

Caste status is inheritedVarna: 1) priest, 2) ruler/warrior, 3)

merchant/landowner/merchant/farmer, 4) servant/tenant + untouchables (Dalit)

Jati (caste): occupationally-defined and regionally-based. Endogamous. Rejects food

prepared by a lower caste.

Criteria for caste ranking

Ritual pollution: dealing with bodily products makes you unclean and unable to take part in

higher status rituals

Food pollution: What you eat, and whom you receive cooked food from, also determines how

clean” you are. Beef is the most polluting food.

Castes sometimes try to change their ranking through Sanskritization.

Hinduism supports caste hierarchy.

Caste relationships• In a traditional village, before it was

penetrated by a monetary economy, we can find the jajmani system, in which lower castes are required to provide certain goods and services to higher castes, in return for a share of the harvest.

• Trautmann, 94.

• varna and jati are not in a strict one-to-one relationship. They are overlapping categories.

PolityTrautmann, 97-101

• Some republics, which means rule by a few members of the elite. A republic at this time in South Asian history is an oligarchy,not a democracy.

• There were also monarchies, but the kings, though they may be seen as semi-divine, nonetheless did not have unlimited power. They had to allow some autonomy to some self-regulating groups.

The position of women

• Sati (suttee), widows joining their deceased husbands on their funeral prye, emerges during the Gupta period.

• The importance of dowries also suggests that the labour of women is not valued particularly high.

• Women do not inherit a share of their father’s property, though their brothers do so.

The social structure in China

No castes: relatively egalitarian for males

Civil service examinations allowed some male social mobility

Traditional ranking: scholars, peasants, artisans, merchants.

Supported by Confucian equating of scholarship with virtue

Social structure in Korea and Japan

• In Korea, aristocrats still retained their status. In Silla Korea, moreover, the rulers tended to also be the chief warriors. Their officials had to have the right family background to hold an official post.

• Japan was similar in that, through the Heian period, aristocrats monopolized power. There were no civil service exams.

Social Structure in SE ASIA

Merchants had higher official status than elsewhere

Relative equality of men and women, including in Vietnam

Slavery common, but often was temporary, a result of unpaid debt.

Criteria for Social Ranking

Is status inherited or earned?In most places, it was inherited, but in China men

could earn high statusWhat role do virtue, ritual purity, family

background, or skill (military, commercial, etc.) play in status?

In China, virtue (learning) was important.In India, ritual purity was important

In the Malay world, commercial skill was important.

In Japan and Korea, family background was important.

Need for Social Hierarchy

Provides stability by defining individual social roles

Eases individual uncertainty about what to do with one’s life

Explains why the fruits of a society are distributed the way they are

What is the relationship between religion, philosophy, and the social

structure?

Religions and philosophy legitimize the existing social structure by claiming that it is natural or even divinely ordained. However, religion and philosophy can also be double-edged swords since both might generate

ethical principles (such as the value of the individual, and the equality of all human

beings) that can challenge those aspects of the existing social order which conflict with

those principles.