Chinese Journal of Sociology

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A Sociological Analysis of Zhaojia

Author：Hu Liang,Department of Sociology,School of Public Administration,Hohai University.   

  1. 作者：胡亮,河海大学公共管理学院社会学系,
  • Online:2012-01-20 Published:2012-01-20
  • Contact: Hu Liang,Department of Sociology,School of Public Administration,Hohai University. E-mail:hlt8179@163.com
  • About author:Hu Liang,Department of Sociology,School of Public Administration,Hohai University.
  • Supported by:

    **This research was funded by National Social Sciences Fund Program “Predicaments and Sociological Analysis in Rural Land Pass”（09CSH025）.

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Abstract:

Asking for additional money after the initial closure of a deal (Zhaojia) was a special economic behavior in rural land transactions. It was a broadly practiced economic phenomenon in the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, that is, after the initial closure of a deal, the seller still had the right to ask for additional money from the buyer. Plattner’s theory is used here as a frame to divide impersonal and personal exchanges to explain this phenomenon from the sociological perspective. I contend that Zhaojia belonged to the kind of personal exchanges and it was made possible when built upon stable social relationships. In this study, I first examined the social background of this economic behavior and discovered that most land transactions took place in villages where the seller and the buyer were often familiar with each other, and that both sides had other social relationships than the relationship in the transaction. The seller often sold his land with a low price, so the local elites would support the seller when he asked for more money after the transaction was done. Past scholars have pointed out that, although the seller could repeatedly ask for additional money, the total value should be within a reasonable range perceived as such by the general public. If what the seller asked for surpassed the upper limit, he would be regarded as greedy and even be accused or punished. I also examined the characteristic of land ownership as it was the basis of land transactions. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, if lineages or other local organizations were successful in making advancement, they then needed to own adequate amount of land in order to secure the extension of the lineages and their positions in the local society. Once the land became the joint family or lineage property, if somebody wanted to sell his piece of land, purchase privilege was given to the members in the seller’s lineage. Land signified the existence of the lineage; the lineage imposed rules to regulate any individual who wanted to sell land, making it difficult to have a land transaction completed with one attempt. Many sellers even reserved their privileged right to buy back the land sold. I cited several cases to demonstrate the official and legal support for Zhaojia. Based on the analysis described above, I looked at the social mechanisms for the institutionalization of this phenomenon. First of all, I explained the origin of the rationality in Zhaojia: an unstable market and the desire to avoid market risks: a growing population but a freeze in land increase, and societal turmoil. Secondly, I analyzed how rural society tried to establish the criteria for Zhaojia. Because kinorganizations, the local gentry, and the Imperial ideology all acknowledged the protection provided by Zhaojia for the weaker groups and its function to maintain local security, Zhaojia was then allowed to be practiced and the Imperial state laws gave local organizations the green light to set up and practice appropriate Zhaojia regulations. Finally, I explained how the elites, officially and locally at the villages, cooperated to mark the boundary of Zhaojia through the procedure of “villagemediationofficial attribution” to avoid local turbulence and to keep village harmony. This mechanism analysis convinced me that the existence of the economical behavior of Zhaojia was rooted in stable social relationships and protected by multiple organizations from villages to the Imperial state.

Key words: Zhaojia, , rationality,, land transaction, , social mechanisms