Studies of Tujia Ancient Social System and Culture — Clan System Culture (Part 3)
Section 3: The Influence of Clan Organizations on Tujia Rural Governance. For traditional Tujia society, the family and clan were the foundation of its social structure. The clan not only undertook administrative functions of grassroots governance such as public security, justice, and taxes and corvée, but also shouldered autonomous functions including moral instruction, education, mutual aid, and public works. In the social structure, as the link between state and people...
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Section 3: The Influence of Clan Organizations on Rural Governance Among the Tujia
For traditional Tujia society, the family and the clan were the foundation of its social structure. The clan not only undertook the administrative functions of grassroots political power such as public security, justice, and taxes and corvée, but also bore autonomous functions such as moral instruction, education, mutual aid, and public welfare construction. In the social structural system, as an intermediary level linking the state and the people, clan organizations reconstructed the mutual checks and balances between the local social system and the state's governing apparatus. While perpetuating patriarchal relations and stabilizing rural social order, they also dissolved the state power's penetration into local society, triggered inter-ethnic conflicts in various forms, and became a destructive force for the stable development of rural society.
I. The Social Basis of Rural Governance Among the Tujia
Clan organizations were the social basis of rural governance among the Tujia. The core issue of rural governance is the issue of power—who obtains governing power, by what means, and in what manner that power is exercised. When we study in depth the traditional clan system culture of the Tujia, we find that clan organizations played an important role in rural governance, enjoyed comprehensive management authority over clan members, and had very close relations with rural governance elites.
In the rural social structure of the Tujia, the clan, with its own particular political demands and ways of expressing interests, created a new form of social organization for the populace. Combined with the baojia system, it filled the "power gap" between state administration and the broad rural populace. The rural elites nurtured by clan organizations and baojia organizations became important forces in the rural self-governing society. The emergence of this special social structure reflects both the effort of state administrative power to extend into grassroots society and the interactive relationship among the state, locality, and populace within the framework of rural governance.
After the Song and Yuan dynasties, the feudal dynasties' encouragement and support of clan autonomy made the clan system a powerful aid to the baojia system. The rural society's control network of "baojia as the warp, clan as the weft" was thus completed, and the clan system and the baojia system together wove an all-encompassing net of rural social control. The clan system, with its special organizational system, made up for the deficiencies of the baojia system, because blood relations were the most important available resource for mutual aid in rural society. Apart from the support of clan forces, the baojia system could hardly function. Therefore, it was clan organizations that constituted the social basis of rural governance in traditional Tujia society.
John King Fairbank held that the Chinese family was a self-contained little world, a miniature state. The social unit was the family, not the individual, and the clan was the responsible element in local political life. From a social perspective, the Tujia in the villages were organized primarily along clan lines, and only secondarily into a neighborhood society of the same area. In fact, it was the clan system that was the foundation of the rural self-governance system in Tujia regional society. This is mainly manifested in the fact that the baojia system and the clan system were closely linked and mutually dependent.
In his article "The Linkage of Rural Imperial Power, Clan Power, and Gentry Power in the Late Qing Dynasty," Dr. Yu Jianrong analyzed in detail the influence of clan organizations on rural governance. He held that clan organizations were the basis for the baojia system to function. The baojia organization was a combination of households linked by a certain territory. Since natural villages in Chinese rural society were mostly settlements of agnatic kin, the "household" in the baojia system had a very obvious territorial character. The two-level bao and jia organization of settled households was usually combined with natural village settlements or geographical divisions. From the perspective of function, clan organizations and baojia organizations had much in common in maintaining public security, instructing clan members, and undertaking public welfare projects. The basic content of many clan rules was: to promote human relations, uphold filial piety and fraternal duty, and rectify the moral order; to "keep one's place and live in harmony with the clan"; to commit no violation of state law; and to pay taxes and fulfill corvée. These clan rules had the compulsory force of feudal law. As it is said, the ruler governs the world as one man, and thus there are laws and regulations; the gentleman instructs his family as one man, and thus there are family precepts.
However, baojia organizations cannot be equated with clan organizations, nor can rural autonomy be completely equated with clan autonomy. The village was based on territory, while baojia was based on households within a certain division. The conclusions drawn by Prasenjit Duara from his study of rural North China also prove this point: the division of baojia or lijia did not entirely conform to the envisaged decimal system, and by the late Qing, divisions such as "pai" and "ten households" gradually came to be based on the clan. Specifically, a pai did not necessarily consist of 10 households; a pai often included households that did not live adjacent to one another but belonged to the same clan.
There was a very close connection between the leaders of baojia organizations and clan organizations. The clan system was organized according to patriarchal principles. The clan head was regarded as the eldest son and the honored one of the clan, "the one on whom the clansmen's eyes are fixed and to whom the clan's household affairs are tied," managing all clan affairs and punishing those who violated family rules or turned against instruction according to the severity of the offense. In ordinary villages, most lived in gathered clans, and the clan head not only held administrative power over the whole village but also had the power to adjudicate civil lawsuits and private clan matters. Clan power had already taken shape in the late Ming dynasty and was further strengthened in the Qing, finally cooperating with the feudal regime and playing the role of grassroots political power. Clan power was formed by the linkage of the clan head, branch heads, ancestral hall, clan fields (charitable fields), and genealogy, and the clan head and branch heads were the personification and concentrated embodiment of clan power. The clan head was generally the one of the highest seniority and advanced age with "virtuous conduct" in the clan; "the whole clan would select one who was honest, capable, fair, and of established prestige and publicly elect him to the post"; "one who was wealthy and capable in the clan would be appointed"; "one who held an examination degree in the clan would preside"; "each branch of the clan would establish a branch head to manage the affairs of that branch, appointed by the clan head and clan rectifier from among those who were senior, fair, clear-minded, and respected by the branch."
The clan is a miniature society, and clan power is a special kind of social power formed through the bond of blood relations. When clan power attached itself to political power and achieved substantial development, it became a strong force for social cohesion. In her article "The Tendency Toward Political Power of Clan Organizations in Chinese History," Dr. Ye Juanli expounded on the controlling role of clan power in grassroots society. She held that clan power not only reflected the constituent content of the clan but also reflected certain social relations. Clan power generally had a strict and fixed organizational form, and the clan head was its personified representative. In traditional Chinese society, the basic economic element was the individual peasant economy. Under the conditions of the time, using clan power to organize and control scattered individual peasants was more effective than relying solely on the strength of local political power. At the same time, compared with individual families, clan organizations had more advantages in promoting the development of the traditional agricultural economy and adapting to a complex and changeable social and political environment. In addition, where class antagonism existed, using the blood relations of the clan, combined with local baojia, to link and control clan members of different classes and ranks not only suited the ethical needs that Chinese peasants had inherited and never forgotten through the ages but also helped consolidate feudal rule. Therefore, ruling through clan power became an important feature of feudal politics. Especially after the Ming dynasty, feudal rulers handed part of administrative, judicial, and adjudicative power to clan power for exercise and gave it legal guarantees, so that clan power partially took on the nature of political power. For example, in the Qing dynasty, in rural societies where living in gathered clans was common, especially in the Jiangnan countryside where clan forces were relatively strong, the baojia system—the grassroots political organization—was often merged with clan organizations. In view of this situation, the state rulers also made flexible provisions for the implementation of the baojia system, allowing that in places where people of the same surname lived together and "baojia could not be organized or investigated," no baojia would be established, and a "clan rectifier" would perform the duties of baojia on its behalf. Even where baojia organizations and clan organizations coexisted, the bao head and jia head were either appointed by large and powerful households or directly served by the heads of large and powerful clans, and in carrying out their duties they were greatly influenced by the clan.
After the Ming dynasty, the feudal regime underwent major changes. On the one hand, as class contradictions became increasingly acute, the ruling class felt that relying solely on political power and the baojia system to control the rural populace was no longer enough. On the other hand, with the development of living in gathered clans and family organizations, clan power had already attained a certain scale and a relatively fixed form, and its role was increasingly strengthened. During this period, building ancestral halls and compiling genealogies gradually became a common social phenomenon, and the scope of clan association expanded somewhat. Many official families and great households formulated clan rules as a bond for controlling clan members; a small number of bureaucrats and rich merchants established clan fields and charitable estates as the material conditions for linking clan members. Clan organizations were strengthened, and clan power was further expanded. Of course, this expansion of clan power was inseparable from the advocacy of the feudal state, officials at all levels, and feudal literati. Their aims were, first, to honor ancestors and respect the clan and promote the spirit of filial piety and harmony; and second, to stabilize social order and consolidate feudal rule. For example, the famous Confucian scholar Fang Xiaoru, who advocated clan power relatively early in the Ming dynasty, while promoting clan harmony, also strongly emphasized its political role. Of course, this political role of clan power also went through a process of development in the Ming dynasty. First came the building of ancestral halls, the compiling of genealogies, and the establishment of clan fields, practicing clan harmony and gathering the clan; then, from clan harmony and gathering the clan, came the instruction and admonition of clan members; and further still, the implementation of family-law sanctions. As clan power grew day by day, the oppression suffered by the rural populace and clan members from clan power became more and more severe. This newly formed clan power was the "clan power of the ancestral hall and clan head," and it had the following characteristics: first, it was combined with the ancestral hall, genealogy, and clan property; second, the clan head changed from being inherited by the eldest son to being recommended from among the wealthy gentry of the clan; and third, it was combined with feudal grassroots political power and gradually became an important controlling force in grassroots society for maintaining feudal rule.
II. A Barrier Against the Forces of State Control
In traditional rural societies lacking sufficient communication between officials and the people, the clan was the public sphere in which villagers shared political life and collectively resisted the penetration of state power. Since the rule of the Tusi (native chieftains) in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, powerful and influential large clans had formed to a certain extent in the Tujia areas. They used clan organizations to strengthen patriarchal rule over clan members, transforming the clan into a closed, self-governing body. When conflicts of interest arose between the clan and the state, the clan heads would rely on clan power to resist state authority and contend with local government. From the perspective of the "integration" of state and society, Professor Zhang Xingjiu expounded on the destructive effect of clan power on the state's public rights in the process of rural governance. He believed that in the long agricultural society, clan organizations and clan power often became a force constraining state power. "Once we change our perspective on the problem and break out of our original way of thinking, we will discover that there also exists a side of interest differences and even interest conflicts between the state and the organizational forces of rural society. This difference and conflict can first be explained from the aspect of the state's autonomy. In the context of Marxist state theory, although the state in essence means the rule of the economically dominant class, on the one hand, this political rule of the state represents the rule of the class as a whole and reflects the overall and fundamental interests of a certain class; these overall interests may differ from and go beyond the specific interests of the members of this class. Thus, based on the needs of the overall interests of the ruling class, differences, frictions, and even conflicts of interest between the state and society, or between the state and a certain stratum of society, may arise."
Due to the selfish character of the feudal autocratic state's "monopolizing private interests," it not only placed the supreme ruling group in opposition to the broad laboring masses, but also inevitably generated potential tensions and conflicts with other members of the ruling class, including the bureaucratic group and the gentry.
From the perspective of grassroots civil forces such as the gentry and clan power, they also had their own relatively independent interests and living space. Many research findings show that the authority that grew out of the gentry and clan and family relationships belonged to a kind of "elder authority," whose legitimacy did not come from official appointment, nor was it based on the property and strength one possessed, but rather depended on one's generational seniority within the family and one's contributions to local public affairs and public interests, such as skillfully dealing with the harassment of bandits and soldiers and the exorbitant taxes and levies of the government, and enthusiastically engaging in local education, public security, relief and charitable undertakings, and folk religious activities, and so on. That is to say, in traditional Chinese society, there actually also existed a grassroots society or "native society" relatively independent of the state political system. This native society had its own relatively independent interests and, in a certain sense, local autonomy. The state could only make use of the elders or gentry in the family and clan and other "rural endogenous power structures to function." Regarding this point, Fei Xiaotong even believed that, due to the existence of local autonomy, central power generally did not directly "enter into local public welfare related to the people's daily lives," and the government's top-down "single-track" power operation process actually "only built up to the county yamen and then stopped."
In short, although "endogenous power structures" such as the gentry and clan power that dominated the countryside certainly had a side of symbiosis and isomorphism with the autocratic state, there also indeed existed a side of estrangement, difference, and even tension and conflict with the state.
Then, what did this local autonomy under the domination of the gentry and clan elders mean politically? As discussed earlier, theoretically speaking, the existence of various local autonomous forces and local autonomy was objectively bound to play a barrier and restraining role against the expansion and swelling of state power. From the actual situation of Chinese history, this conclusion has also been confirmed by many research findings. For example, as early as the 1940s, the famous sociologist Fei Xiaotong pointed out, based on many years of investigation and research on Chinese rural society, that there existed two lines of defense in China's autocratic politics, which prevented an emperor who might be a tyrant from actually becoming a tyrant. The first line of defense was the doctrine of non-action in political philosophy. Because countless experiences and lessons had made people see that, under the autocratic politics of the emperor beyond the reach of law, government action was merely speeding along a top-down single track; once the train on this single track sped up, imperial power would be like a runaway horse, and in the end it was still the people who suffered. Moreover, in China's political wisdom there was also a lack of the concept of using a constitution to control power, so the only option was to adopt the political doctrine of non-action to "place power under house arrest, so that it would not cause trouble." The second line of defense was the formation of local autonomy through the role of gentry power, dividing politics into two levels—centralized power and local autonomy—and suspending the central government "in the air," so that autocratic imperial power could not directly enter the people's daily lives; thus, after fulfilling limited obligations, the people could enjoy a relatively large degree of autonomy in life. "This research finding lets us see that although the gentry and clan elders would also pursue personal private interests, and although there also existed in Chinese society the side of collusion between officials and gentry and the oppression of the common people, on the whole, local autonomy under the domination of the gentry and clan elders was in fact a form of social constraint on state power in imperial China, and an important component of the adjustment and restraint mechanism of China's monarchical autocratic system. Their existence objectively played a positive role in balancing the relationship between state and society in imperial China and in alleviating the comprehensive destruction brought to society by that violent and irrational autocratic politics."
Mr. Cai Gaofeng's academic views have given us great inspiration. In his article "'Rural Autonomy' under the Clan System," he thoroughly analyzed the conflict between clan organizations and state power. He believed that rural autonomy in traditional Chinese society was a structure of long-term continuous contention and concession, struggle and compromise between central and local authorities, between political power and imperial power on the one hand and clan power and gentry power on the other, and between the high-level structure and the low-level structure of society. Chinese history was once a history of long-term contention for power between the central and local authorities. After the Song dynasty, the abuse of overbearing local forces was eliminated, but the ruling power of the central government still could not reach down to the grassroots level. To prevent the expansion of local powerful families, the central government formulated the "law of avoidance" regarding the official appointment system, that is, prohibiting officials from serving in their home prefecture or county. Thus, a county magistrate appointed by the central government, arriving in an unfamiliar environment, might not even understand the local dialect, and had no choice but to cooperate closely with local gentry to govern his jurisdiction. Therefore, in grassroots society, autonomous organizations such as clans, community compacts, and village communities actually played the main role. The government's baojia system was often adapted according to the wishes of the gentry; otherwise, if their interests were offended, they would resist through non-cooperation. Moreover, the baojia heads designated by the government had low status and position, making it truly difficult for them to perform their duties. When studying traditional Chinese society, the German sociologist Max Weber said: "The history of Chinese governance is the history of imperial power attempting to continuously extend its governing forces to areas outside the cities, but apart from obtaining compromises on taxes, the imperial government's expansion of power into areas outside the cities could not succeed for long."
Nevertheless, in more aspects, rural clan organizations and state power still displayed consistency. First, there was the existence of the gentry stratum. The grassroots gentry represented local interests; the Confucian cultural education they received made them identify with the orthodox norms of state power, and the most renowned local gentry were often those bureaucrats who had retired to the countryside. They always sought to instill into the populace the ideas of loyalty, filial piety, chastity, and righteousness, so that rural society and the government would act in concert. In addition, clans and the state had broad consistency in the value system of orthodox culture. The government recognized the local existence of clan power and used it as the foundation for maintaining the ruling order, while the clan played the role of a grassroots organization of state power. Rural autonomous organizations were the extension of central power in grassroots society within an agricultural country with low productive forces, and with their unique power and universal binding force they filled the vacuum that state power could not reach. Clan autonomy played an indispensable role in the stability and development of grassroots society, but at the same time it also produced many negative effects.
First, a clan organization often constituted a self-sufficient natural economic entity and a closed society. Organizations were relatively isolated from one another, lacking contact and exchange. Under a natural economy, there was also no need for exchange to supply each other's needs, and the closed society in turn protected the natural economy and strengthened its resistance to the commodity economy. China's feudal economy had already developed to a mature stage during the Tang and Song dynasties, far earlier than the countries of Western Europe. However, by the time of the Opium War, China had still not formed a developed commodity economy or produced an advanced capitalist mode of production. There were certainly many reasons for this, but it was not unrelated to the isolation of clan groups in the underlying structure of Chinese society.
Second, in a rural society with the family as the main body, group interests and family interests stood above all else. Any individual behavior had to submit to the needs of the family and conform to certain group interests. The pursuit of personal fame and gain could not be advocated and was even considered immoral, whereas behavior carried out in the name of the family or group, even if somewhat excessive, would receive praise and commendation, or moral support and sympathy. The family was a powerful backing for the individual, providing to a certain extent material and security guarantees; a mediocre person could also spend a lifetime in glory under the wings of the family. Therefore, traditional rural society lacked the soil for cultivating individual enterprising spirit.
Third, the strong native-place consciousness and the idea of being attached to one's native land and reluctant to move, so prominent in traditional Chinese national concepts, as well as many backward ideas in the minds of old-style Chinese peasants, all had deep origins in long-term clan autonomy. First, in villages under the clan system, each person had numerous social relationships and a social position of his own; once he left the village community, he lost his reliance on this whole, and elsewhere it was very difficult for him to be accepted by other social groups. Second, in traditional society, land was people's means of livelihood and most precious wealth, but land could not be carried away with one, and it was very difficult to acquire land anew in another place; therefore, Chinese peasants always clung to that bit of land in their hometown and were unwilling to leave easily. Unable to break free from the bondage of land and unable to step out of the narrow world of the countryside, Chinese peasants lacked the indomitable pioneering spirit and courage of early American farmers, while backward ideas such as conservatism, narrow-mindedness, and short-sightedness, through long historical accumulation, became common weaknesses of old-style Chinese peasants. In addition, clan organizations were exclusionary toward outsiders. After conducting an investigation in Jiangcun, Mr. Fei Xiaotong said: "I have never heard how long an outsider must live in the village to count as a local, but I have heard that the children of outsiders, though born in the village, are still regarded as outsiders just like their parents." It was very difficult for a person to gain a foothold in a foreign place, and over time he developed a fear of the outside world; coupled with attachment to his native place, the idea of being attached to the land and reluctant to move gradually became deeply rooted in people's minds.
Finally, clan autonomy caused a separation between the high-level structure and the low-level structure of society. In traditional society, the lower classes of people were far removed from the center of state power, while national political life was entirely monopolized by bureaucrats. Therefore, the common people were insulated from politics, and they believed that no matter who held power, it had nothing to do with them. Because of the development of the clan system, people cared only about the interests of the family, and in their hearts there was only the family and no awareness of the nation. Moreover, the severe disconnection between state power and grassroots society left the lower classes lacking national consciousness and patriotic ideas, and when foreign peoples invaded, they could not coalesce into a powerful national cohesion to resist foreign aggression.
As a product of the combination of the small-peasant economy with low productive forces and the clan system, clan autonomy demonstrated the inevitability of its existence in traditional Chinese society, and in different historical periods its role in integrating grassroots society and stabilizing social order could not be replaced by any other organization. However, when society entered the era of commercialization, the internal needs of economic development urgently required breaking down regional boundaries and carrying out multifaceted exchange and cooperation within a broad area, and the closed clan autonomous organizations thus lost the meaning of their existence.