5.8: Han Clan Ideology and Organization

In order to hold their property together, and assure that clan members cooperated with one another both locally and at court to promote shared interests, clan leaders had to counter the norm, embedded in the law, that the nuclear family and husband-wife bond were most important. To create a clear line of command within the large number of families making up the clan, they had to fight the norm of equality embedded in the law. They could not just say, “We reject all the changes since Qin,” because as commoners for their power they relied on the Qin and Han institutions of private property and meritocracy. So they adopted and revised old feudal ideas and attributed them to Confucius, drawing on and reshaping the ritual classics. They adopted from the Zhou aristocracy the neat scheme of the ritual reform that traced a patrilineal descent line from father to sons over generations, distinguishing elder from younger sons. They associated with this patrilineal ideal a number of other demands on family members, which I will explain below.

First, the big clans made ancestors important again. Most people in Han times just did not think much about their ancestors at all. Biographies in the History of Former Han (written by Ban Gu (AD 32-92) and his sister, Ban Zhao) recount a man’s own titles and accomplishments, but rarely give even the names of his forefathers. Historian Hou Xudong writes,

In the Western Han period, Chinese as a whole lacked deep concern about the names of their ancestors. Few people could remember the names of their grandfathers, to say nothing of ancestors deeper in the past.²⁰

Around the end of Former Han, the rising clans started to think more about ancestors; Wang Mang promoted this trend, and the first excavated epitaph that records five generations of patrilineal ancestors was carved in 165 AD. (By the way, this epitaph also claimed that the deceased was distantly descended from the Kija.)²¹ Surnames, originally given to commoners in order to register them as taxpayers, now tracked patrilineal ancestors, their achievements, and perhaps the power they could draw on to help descendants. “What are surnames for?” asked Ban Gu. “They are the way that we honor contributions and virtue/efficacious spiritual power (gongde 功德) and discourage mere cunning and force.”

Second, not all ancestors were equal. Surnames passed patrilineally, and matrilineal kin began to be denigrated. Sociologist Pan Guangdan argues that the ritual system of mourning grades in the ritual classic Book of Etiquette and Propriety (Yili 儀禮, completed in Han times and a key test of patrilinealism) did not record actual ancient practice. Rather, it argued against normal practice, recommending that fathers and paternal kin should be mourned more deeply than mothers and maternal kin.²² Even among patrilineal kin, the clan ideologists created hierarchy modelled on the Zhou feudal lines. One senior or “trunk” line carried on the worship of the ancestors, and outranked “branch” or junior lines stemming from younger brothers.

Third, the patrilinealists set new priorities and a chain of command. They argued that the clan was more important than the individual or the nuclear family. Older clan members of the family, members of senior generations, and members of senior lines were more valuable – they argued – than younger and junior people. They created a clear chain of family rank and command. No two people within the family were equal. Gender, age, generation, birth order, and line membership all figured into a person’s family rank. Men dominated women within the same level of hierarchy and same generation, but mothers commanded sons and other juniors. In this patriarchal system, filial piety meant the sacrifice of juniors to seniors in all dimensions. Stories told of virtuous aunts who sacrificed their own sons to save their nephews in the senior line. Wives should sacrifice their own interests to obey their parents-in-law, younger brothers obey elder brothers and protect their children first, and so on. The ranking facilitated clear lines of command as the clan grew.

Fourth, to keep the clan property intact for maximum power, the clan ideologists argued that divorce was ethically wrong. For women to remarry after being widowed was also wrong. Recall that in a divorce or when a widow remarried, by law she took her dowry, her husband’s property, and her children with her. In order to keep top-down “harmony” within the family by preventing friendly or amorous relations now that clan members were spending more time together, maybe even living together in extended families, the clan ideologists promoted the separation and differentiation of the sexes, and ritualized relations between them. For similar reasons, they promoted monogamy, meaning that each man had only one primary wife. If he insisted on marrying a concubine (secondary wife), the wife outranked the concubine, and had control of how she spent her time. A concubine could never be promoted to primary wife, even if the primary wife died. A concubine had no importance outside of her relationship with her husband; even her children belonged to the primary wife, and the concubine might even be buried with her husband when he died, against her will. Again, the differentiation of types of wife assured that was it clear who outranked whom. Finally, procreation was declared to be a key duty of sons, who had to carry on the line. These ideas the clans linked with Confucius, inventing the new Classic of Filial Piety to put words in his mouth, and associating the Zuo Commentary with its attention to surnames with the Spring and Autumn Annals.

Patrilineal ideology empowered senior wives, as well as senior husbands. A very wellknown argument for this style of Confucianism was written by Ban Zhao, who finished the History of Former Han for her brother. Her instructions are often called Lessons for Women and in the early twentieth century came to be understood as betrayal, teaching women to simply obey men. But 女誡 could be also be translated “A Warning for Wives,” and interpreted as advice about how to avoid being legally divorced; or as “A Warning about Women,” arguing that they ought to be educated; or as “Lessons for Wives,” promising a set of good outcomes to the wife who follows the Confucian path of family duty, ritual, and learning. It could be translated “Advice for Daughters,” in which Ban addressed teenagers, using their wish for love and worries about their looks to convince them to follow the Confucian path. If translated “A Warning from a Woman,” it could constitute a way for political women and men to stay safe at the dangerous Han court. Finally, given that Ban Zhao educated royal women and advised Empress Deng, who promoted Daoism, the title “Feminine Advice” could lead us to look for Daoist elements.

Patrilineal ideology and organization reinforced the clans’ power as landholders. Filial piety stories aimed at indoctrinating juniors. Tomb carvings portrayed filial exemplars alongside or instead of the usual pictures of Daoist transcendents, spirits, deities, and martial heroes. For the first time, filial piety came to mean absolute obedience to parents and seniors, and abnegation of the self. (But it could clash with other values in the new code. Confucian scholar Xun Shuang (AD 128-90), urged his widowed daughter Cai to remarry and live a full life. But Cai thought remarriage was wrong, and committed suicide rather than obeying her father.)

Filial piety stories also advertised the clan. The Han government, you will recall, recruited candidates for office through recommendation by county officials on the basis of virtue and learning. The filial sons of clans with the resources to allow them to study The Analects and The Classic of Filial Piety, and then the Five Classics, would naturally be recommended for office. The Classic of Filial Piety overtly connected family virtue with utility to the state:

As one serves one’s family, so one serves one’s mother, drawing on the same love. As one serves one’s father, so one serves one’s prince, drawing on the same reverence… If one serves the prince with the filiality one shows one’s father, if becomes the virtue of loyalty. If one serves one’s superiors in office with brotherly submission, it becomes the virtue of obedience. Never failing loyalty and obedience, this is how one serves one’s superiors. Thus may one preserve rank and office and continue the family sacrifices. This is the filiality of the scholar official…²³

So much for the idea that the truly loyal official was like Mencius: one who told the ruler unpleasant truths when necessary. The new Confucianism, ever more prominent in Latter Han as members of the clans served as officials and married emperors, promised rulers obedience.

But this promise was not kept. For the emperors of Latter Han, after Guangwu, were weaklings who took the throne as babies or children and died before they were 40. They married members of the clans, and their mothers and fathers-in-law, along with court eunuchs, bossed them around instead of obeying them. The consort kin collected as much as wealth they could, and tried to secure their positions by slaughtering their rivals. The court had collected less and less public income, and with public conscription over, military power passed to the heads of commanderies – also of course from the clans – who created private armies. Some villages moved up into the hills to escape the disorder, a practice poeticized by Tao Yuanming (365?-427) in “The Peach-Blossom Spring,” but others fell under the control of the clans.

The growing power of great clans rested on a number of things, as the example of the Cui clan of Boling illustrates. First, they owned land and were respected leaders in the local community at Boling in Hebei. They attended to relations and social prestige there, visiting neighbors, maintaining good relations with other, less-wealthy respected people, providing charity to needy neighbors, and serving as local intermediaries with officials. Second, they were asked to hold office and often accepted for brief periods. In the Han period, few of the Cuis chose to hold government office for very long; Cui Yin argued that attending to family ritual was a legitimate occupation in itself. In the Period of Division, Daoism legitimated the choice not to serve.

Third, clan members were well-educated (at home) in the classics and literature; some families specialized in particular texts that they owned, with family traditions of interpretation. They wrote elegant essays and poems. Fourth, they knew how to act properly at funerals and towards their elders. Fifth, they held clan members together in large numbers and over generations, through attention to patrilineal principles and family ritual, and through economic savvy. They managed farmland, tenants, and slaves, and saved money, investing it in enterprises such as brewing. They accrued enough wealth to profit by buying low and selling high. And sixth, when necessary they fortified and armed their estates to protect themselves.²⁴ Clans like this also displayed their Confucian virtue through tomb art in a dramatically different style from that of royalty, eunuchs, and wealthy mercantile families that did not pursue the same strategies.²⁵

The clans’ power increased after the fall of Han. They came to consider themselves truly, and naturally, different from and better than others in society. They became a new hereditary elite, an aristocracy.