The Ability and Authority of Servants in a Ming Lineage Plan

Bibliographic Data

ID21877940
AuthorsSarah Schneewind (0000-0002-2210-8739, University of California System, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume9
Issue2
Pages301-321
Publication date2025-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Chinese History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2059-1632 • E-ISSN: 2059-1640
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/jch.2024.51
OpenAlexW4406110784
LanguageEN
References cited20

In considering Huo Tao’s Family Admonitions , a text included in a lineage genealogy of the early sixteenth century, this article investigates its five constituent logics (Confucian propriety, bureaucratic division of responsibility, subsistence agriculture, wealth creation, and punitive patriarchy). It explains what sorts of expert abilities Huo considered necessary and what relations of authority (defined as power over others that they accept) those abilities entailed. Huo’s plan relies not only on the expertise of lineage members, but also on the abilities of hired workers and bondservants/slaves who held their positions for a long time. Their positions gave them authority in the workspace over the lineage members who outranked them legally, calling into question the utility of simple categories of “social status.” Because the text was later copied repeatedly into other lineages’ compilations, Huo’s plan must have made sense to Ming and Qing lineage leaders, so it may illuminate how they constructed relations of authority and social status

Biology · Bureaucracy · Genealogy · Kinship · Patriarchy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Genetics

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