Chapter 5 - Society and Inequality in Eurasia
This system of electing administrators became the world's first professional civil service over time. Emperor Wu Di created an imperial academy in 124 B.C.E., where potential officials were educated as academics and steeped in writings on history, literature, art, and mathematics, with a focus on Confucian doctrines.
Village groups or a local landowner, on the other hand, might support the education of a talented young man from a commoner family, allowing him to enter the enchanted circle of officialdom.
That system became increasingly more comprehensive in following dynasties, and it became an enduring and distinguishing aspect of Chinese culture.
Those who rose through the ranks of the bureaucracy gained access to a world of extraordinary privilege and distinction. Senior officials rode around in carriages, wearing robes, ribbons, seals, and headdresses befitting their status.
Those who rose through the ranks of the bureaucracy gained access to a world of extraordinary privilege and distinction. Senior officials rode around in carriages, wearing robes, ribbons, seals, and headdresses befitting their status.
Wang Mang, a Han dynasty high court official who took the emperor's throne in 8 c.e. and subsequently started a series of spectacular reforms, is credited with one of the most dramatic state measures to resist the growing influence of great landowners.
Large landowning families remained a key component of Chinese society, even if individual families' fortunes soared and fell as the wheel of fortune pushed them to great prominence or pushed them to poverty and disgrace.
Throughout the history of China's civilization, peasants made up the vast bulk of the population, living in small houses with two or three generations.
Many others would be lucky to make it. Nature, the state, and landlords all conspired to make most peasants' lives extremely precarious. Famines, floods, droughts, hail, and pests could all strike at any time. State officials demanded tax payments, a month's worth of labor on various public projects every year, and recruited young men for military duty.
Peasants, in the view of the scholar-gentry, were the country's sturdy producing backbone, and their hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity were commendable. Merchants, on the other hand, did not have such a positive image among China's cultural elite.
Such viewpoints underpin state authorities' attempts to rein in and control commercial activity on a regular basis. Merchants were forbidden to wear silk, ride horses, or carry guns during the Han dynasty's early years.
Despite the active prejudice, merchants were typically rich. Some attempted to elevate their status by purchasing landed properties or preparing their sons for civil service examinations.
The caste system's origins are murky at best. In recent years, an older notion that caste arose from a racially defined clash between light-skinned Aryan invaders and darker-hued native peoples has been disputed, but no clear alternative theory has developed.
Whatever the exact roots of the caste system, the idea that society was perpetually split into four graded classes or varnas, was thoroughly established in Indian philosophy by around 500 B.C.E. Everyone was born into one of these classes and remained in it for the rest of their lives.
The Sudras, aboriginal peoples absorbed into the fringes of Aryan culture in very submissive roles, were much below these twice-born in the hierarchy of varna groupings.
These four classes, according to varna doctrine, were produced from the body of the god Purusha and were hence immortal and changeless. Even though these divisions are still generally recognized in India today, historians have seen significant social upheaval in ancient India's history.
Second-wave civilizations' patriarchies not only fluctuated over time but also differed greatly from place to place. The disparity between Athens and Sparta, two of the most important city-states of Greek civilization, exemplifies this variance.
Women in Athens faced increasing limits over the centuries between 700 and 400 B.C.E., as the city's free male citizens pushed toward unprecedented participation in political life.
Women's exclusion from public life and their overall subjection to men were justified by Greek scholars, particularly Aristotle. “A woman is, as it were, an infertile male,” according to Aristotle.
This system of electing administrators became the world's first professional civil service over time. Emperor Wu Di created an imperial academy in 124 B.C.E., where potential officials were educated as academics and steeped in writings on history, literature, art, and mathematics, with a focus on Confucian doctrines.
Village groups or a local landowner, on the other hand, might support the education of a talented young man from a commoner family, allowing him to enter the enchanted circle of officialdom.
That system became increasingly more comprehensive in following dynasties, and it became an enduring and distinguishing aspect of Chinese culture.
Those who rose through the ranks of the bureaucracy gained access to a world of extraordinary privilege and distinction. Senior officials rode around in carriages, wearing robes, ribbons, seals, and headdresses befitting their status.
Those who rose through the ranks of the bureaucracy gained access to a world of extraordinary privilege and distinction. Senior officials rode around in carriages, wearing robes, ribbons, seals, and headdresses befitting their status.
Wang Mang, a Han dynasty high court official who took the emperor's throne in 8 c.e. and subsequently started a series of spectacular reforms, is credited with one of the most dramatic state measures to resist the growing influence of great landowners.
Large landowning families remained a key component of Chinese society, even if individual families' fortunes soared and fell as the wheel of fortune pushed them to great prominence or pushed them to poverty and disgrace.
Throughout the history of China's civilization, peasants made up the vast bulk of the population, living in small houses with two or three generations.
Many others would be lucky to make it. Nature, the state, and landlords all conspired to make most peasants' lives extremely precarious. Famines, floods, droughts, hail, and pests could all strike at any time. State officials demanded tax payments, a month's worth of labor on various public projects every year, and recruited young men for military duty.
Peasants, in the view of the scholar-gentry, were the country's sturdy producing backbone, and their hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity were commendable. Merchants, on the other hand, did not have such a positive image among China's cultural elite.
Such viewpoints underpin state authorities' attempts to rein in and control commercial activity on a regular basis. Merchants were forbidden to wear silk, ride horses, or carry guns during the Han dynasty's early years.
Despite the active prejudice, merchants were typically rich. Some attempted to elevate their status by purchasing landed properties or preparing their sons for civil service examinations.
The caste system's origins are murky at best. In recent years, an older notion that caste arose from a racially defined clash between light-skinned Aryan invaders and darker-hued native peoples has been disputed, but no clear alternative theory has developed.
Whatever the exact roots of the caste system, the idea that society was perpetually split into four graded classes or varnas, was thoroughly established in Indian philosophy by around 500 B.C.E. Everyone was born into one of these classes and remained in it for the rest of their lives.
The Sudras, aboriginal peoples absorbed into the fringes of Aryan culture in very submissive roles, were much below these twice-born in the hierarchy of varna groupings.
These four classes, according to varna doctrine, were produced from the body of the god Purusha and were hence immortal and changeless. Even though these divisions are still generally recognized in India today, historians have seen significant social upheaval in ancient India's history.
Second-wave civilizations' patriarchies not only fluctuated over time but also differed greatly from place to place. The disparity between Athens and Sparta, two of the most important city-states of Greek civilization, exemplifies this variance.
Women in Athens faced increasing limits over the centuries between 700 and 400 B.C.E., as the city's free male citizens pushed toward unprecedented participation in political life.
Women's exclusion from public life and their overall subjection to men were justified by Greek scholars, particularly Aristotle. “A woman is, as it were, an infertile male,” according to Aristotle.
