Abstract:

Abstract： There exists a big gap between the early and late books by T’ungtsu Ch’u. In his earliest books “Feudal Society in China” and “Law and Society in Traditional China,” social structures and Confucian ideals matched perfectly with each other in the frame of traditional laws. Yet this harmony was upset in his latest book “Local Government in China under the Ch’ing.” This article dives into T’ungtsu Ch’u’s western influences represented by Henry Maine. Ch’u’ studies of laws were found to be characterized of “denatural law,” meaning that Ch’u completely neglected the morality in the law and took Covariation as the focal point for historical examination. In his book “Han Social Structure,” Ch’u combined this mechanism analysis with Confucian ideals of “zunzun” (respect) and “qinqin” (kinship) to explain the maintenance and changes of social structures, but only to find great structural instability caused by the mechanism. It is very possible that this was the very reason for Ch’u to dismiss Confucius ideals and turn to the importance of social conditions themselves being placed above all in his later book of “Local Government in China under the Ch’ing.”

Key words: Ch’u T’ungtsu, feudal society in china, law and society in traditional china, Han social structure, local government in china under the Ch’ing, confucian ideals, social structure, “denatural law”