A Study on "the Distinction between Shih 士 (Scholars) and Shu 庶 (Commoners)" : A Viewpoint on the Aristocracy in the Southern Dynasties Period

Abstract

During the Six Dynasties period, particularly the Southern Dynasties, the fact known as "the Distinction between Shih 士 (Scholars) and Shu 庶 (Commoners)" is conspicuous. This fact is found in the various aspects of the society : marriage, social intercourse, official appointment, implication in penal law, corvee obligation, the education system and criminal law. This paper is an attempt to explain one part of the special characteristics of the State and its social structure during the Six Dynasties period by a study of these distinctions. "The Distinction between Shih and Shu" can be divided into two types. One type has the social position of the individual and the clan as its standard. Discriminations in marriage and social intercourse belong to this type. The other type takes the existence of political privileges of the individual and the clan as its standard. Differences in treatment before criminal law and with respect to corvee obligations, etc., belong to this type. These facts, then, permit us to suppose that there were two aspects to the Shih and Shu. Conclusively speaking, the Shih and Shu fundamentally existed as social groups. In local village society, once a person was rated among villagers as being fit to become a bureaucrat, he obtained Hsiang-P'in 郷品 (the qualification for bureaucratic rank) and was included among the group of bureaucratic candidates. Though the majority of them were soon to become bureaucrats, even if this was not the case, people who had obtained Hsiang-P'in had a special existence in local village society. In their own time or after the accumulation of such individuals in the family lineage, these people formed the special social group, that is, Shih. The group of villagers who were excluded from this group was called Shu. Thus, the authority of the Emperor did not interfere at all with the formation of a status group called Shih or Shu. Therefore they may be said to be social groups. The Shih and Shu that constituted such social status groups had a strictly differentiated existence as members of local village society. The Shih and Shu, however, were not distinguished in this way as subjects of the Emperor. This was due to the fact that obligations and privileges due as Imperial subjects were given out by Imperial authority, and that in making such grants both groups alike as subjects were in principle subject to the same treatment. Furthermore, it was because these obligations and privileges were granted on the basis of whether the person was an Imperial bureaucrat or not. Thus, at this point, a status order with bureaucratic rank as its momentum was formed and it was also known as Shih and Shu. From its organization we can say that it was the Shih and Shu as a political rank. These types of Shih and Shu were not perfectly mutually corresponding, but were completely separate heterogeneous groups, yet at the same time they were reciprocally regulated. In particular, the formation of Shih and Shu as political rank was strongly regulated by the existence of Shih and Shu as social group. For this reason the political ruling structure with the authority of the Emperor at the apex had to make this social class system inherent, and the result of that was to have a stratified structure that corresponded with the social class system. The conspicuousness of "the Distinction between Shih and Shu" was determined by this historical nature : in the Six Dynasties period, there was a strengthened and actualized Social class system and the Imperial authority, while internalizing the system, had to build up the political ruling structure. Subsequently the special characteristics of the aristocracy in the Southern Dynasties period owe much to such a historical nature.