Gentry (China)
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The "
gentry Gentry (from Old French , from ) are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. ''Gentry'', in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to Landed property, landed es ...
", or "landed gentry" in China was the elite who held privileged status through passing the Imperial exams, which made them eligible to hold office. These literati, or
scholar-official The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats (), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class. Scholar-officials were politicians and governmen ...
s, (''shenshi'' 紳士 or ''jinshen'' 縉紳), also called 士紳 ''shishen'' "scholar gentry" or 鄉紳 ''xiangshen'' "local gentry", held a virtual monopoly on office holding, and overlapped with an unofficial elite of the wealthy. The Tang and Song dynasties expanded the civil service exam to replace the
nine-rank system The nine-rank system, also known as the nine-grade controller system, was used to categorize and classify government officials by rank in Imperial China. Their accorded rank signified their status in the government hierarchy and the amount of wage ...
which favored hereditary and largely military
aristocrats Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense economic, political, and social influence. In Western Christian co ...
. As a social class they included retired mandarins or their families and descendants. Owning land was often their way of preserving wealth.Chang Chung-li hongli Zhang ''The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955).


Confucian classes

The
Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...
ideal of the
four occupations The four occupations (), or "four categories of the people" (),Hansson, pp. 20-21Brook, 72. was an occupation classification used in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the late Zhou dynasty and is considered a ...
ranked the
scholar-official The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats (), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class. Scholar-officials were politicians and governmen ...
above farmers, artisans, and merchants below them in descending order, but this ideal fell short of describing society. Unlike a
caste A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...
this status was not inherited. In theory, any male child could study, pass the exams, and attain office. In practice, however, gentry families were more able to educate their sons and used their connections with local officials to protect their interests. Members of the gentry were expected to be an example to their community as Confucian gentlemen. They often retired to landed estates, where they lived on the rent from
tenant farmers A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and mana ...
. The sons of gentry aspired to pass the imperial exams and continue the family legacy. By late imperial China, merchants used their wealth to educate their sons in hopes of entering the
civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...
. Financially desperate gentry married into merchant families which led to a breakdown of the old class structure. With the abolition of the exam system and the overthrow of the
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
came the end of the scholar-official as a legal group.


20th century attacks on landlords

The imperial government and scholar-official system ended but the landlord-tenant system did not. New Culture radicals of the 1920s used the term "gentry" to criticize land owners as "feudal".
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...
led the way in attacking "bad gentry and local bullies" for collecting high rent and oppressing their tenants during the Republican period. Many local landlords organized gangs to enforce their rule. Communist organizers promised agrarian reform and land redistribution. After the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
was established, many landlords were executed after
class struggle In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...
trials and the class as a whole was abolished. Former members were stigmatized and faced persecution which reached its heights during the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
. This persecution ended with the advent of
Chinese economic reform Reform and opening-up ( zh, s=改革开放, p=Gǎigé kāifàng), also known as the Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, refers to a variety of economic reforms termed socialism with Chinese characteristics and socialist marke ...
under
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's R ...
.


See also

*
Chinese nobility The nobility of China represented the upper strata of aristocracy in premodern China, acting as the ruling class until , and remaining a significant feature of the traditional social structure until the end of the imperial period. The concepts ...
* Society and culture of the Han dynasty *
Cabang Atas The Cabang Atas (''Van Ophuijsen Spelling System'': Tjabang Atas)—literally 'upper branch' in Indonesian language, Indonesian—was the traditional Chinese establishment or gentry of Dutch East Indies, colonial Indonesia. They were the families ...
, the Chinese gentry of colonial Indonesia *
Dou dizhu ''Dou dizhu'' () is a card game in the genre of shedding and gambling. It is one of the most popular card games played in China. ''Dou dizhu'' is described as easy to learn but hard to master, requiring mathematical and strategic thinking as we ...
, Chinese game of 'fighting the landlord'


References


Sources

* {{citation , first= Benjamin A. , last =Elman, chapter =Civil Service Examinations (Keju) , pages =405–410, title =Berkeshire Encyclopedia of China , location = Great Barrington, MA, publisher =Berkshire , year =2009 , chapter-url= https://www.princeton.edu/~elman/documents/Civil%20Service%20Examinations.pdf Gentry Social history of China Social class in China Chinese landlords