Social Discrimination in Traditional China: the To-Min of Shaohsing

Abstract

very considerable social mobility, at least from the Sung dynasty (96-12z79) on. Sheng kuan fa ts'ai (Rise into the officialdom and get rich) expressed the age-old dream of virtually every commoner family. In contrast to the aristocratic societies of premodern Europe and Japan, where entry into the elite was severely restricted by birth, China boasted a bureaucratic system in which officials were selected by a merit-oriented examination system where discrimination against the humble existed de facto, to be sure, but never de jure. Never? At least, hardly ever. Our concern below is a little-studied exception to the rule of social mobility in traditional China. The locus of this study is Chekiang province's Shaohsing a *) prefecture (southwest of Shanghai, between Hangchow and Ningpo). One fascinating aspect of local society in all eight counties of Shaohsing prefecture, plus part of Ningpo, was the hereditary group of d6class6, demeaned people, chien-min b, known in Shaohsing as the to-mine (literally fallen people). The homophone character to d meaning lazy was also used. An alternate name for the Shaohsing to-min was kai-hu e, beggar households. The terms are used interchangably in gazetteer descriptions, and it is clear that, at least in Shaohsing, beggar households were not necessarily beggars 1).