Reorienting the Manchus: A Study of Sinicization, 1583–1795

Chapter VI. Transformation of Social Institutions

205 Chapter VI Transformation of Social Institutions Chinese influence on Jurchen social institutions perhaps played the most significant role in sinicization. Changes began before 1644 as a result of frontier contacts. The Liaodong region provided, among other things, a social basis for interaction between the Chinese and Jurchen frontiersmen. The wide cultural disparity did not hinder contacts, official or private. The Chinese were influenced by the culture of their counterparts; some even identified with Nurhaci’s cause. But the Jurchens, both nobles and commoners, experienced far broader and deeper changes in their social institutions. If transformations of administrative and legal institutions had an effect on the upper structure of Jurchen culture, social changes also affected the very foundation of daily life. Working together, they deepened Chinese influence. My analysis will focus on changes in marriage, funerals, ultimogeniture, naming practices, and on the decline of Manchu martial values. All these are related to the family, which is a molder of a person’s attitudes, manners, beliefs, and values.1 1. Changes in the Family and Customs The Jurchen marital customs were influenced by neighboring tribes because Manchuria was a meeting place of peoples. Early marriage was common to the Jurchen people regardless of social status. In the harems of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji many women became imperial consorts at the ages of twelve to fourteen. These monarchs married off their daughters at similar ages, the youngest bride being a ten year old. In an edict of 1635, Hong Taiji forbade Jurchen girls from becoming brides before they were eleven (twelve sui). In all likelihood this decree 206 Chapter VI was a result of Chinese cultural influence, since in China brides and bridegrooms were a little older. Shunzhi had only one grown princess, who became a bride at the age of thirteen. The marriage age of imperial clanswomen generally increased from the Kangxi period onward. Kangxi had eight daughters, who married at ages seventeen to twenty-two. According to a report dated 1715, there were forty-three marriageable imperial clanswomen. They were between the ages of fifteen and thirty-two, averaging about nineteen and three-tenths. Yongzheng’s daughter married at seventeen, while Qianlong married off his five daughters when they were between fourteen andsixteen.ThemarriageageofthefemaleoffspringofDorgon,Hooge, and Yin-wu (also Yun-wu, 1693–1731), the fifteenth son of Kangxi, followed the same trend. Thirty-five of Dorgon’s female offspring from the beginning to 1795 married at the average age of twenty and six-tenths. During the same period ninety-nine female descendants of Hooge, eldest son of Hong Taiji, married at the average age of nineteen and four-tenths. From the Yin-wu line came thirty-two princesses, born between the 1710s and 1795. Twelve of them married at the average age of eighteen and a half. The average marrying age for daughters of the Jiaqing and Daoguang emperors (r. 1796–1820; 1821–1850) was between seventeen and nineteen. In China proper, other Manchus seem to have followed the same pattern, but those in far-flung regions of Manchuria maintained the tradition of early marriage.2 Table 6. Average Marrying Age of Princesses, 1583–1795* Emperor Number of Married Daughters Youngest Marrying Age Average Marrying Age Source: Xingyuan jiqing Nurhaci 8 10 12.7–14.7* pp. 22–23 Hong Taiji 14 11 12.7 pp. 30–33 Shunzhi 1 13 13 pp. 39–40 Kangxi 8 17 19 pp. 54–57 Yongzheng 1 17 17 p. 63 Qianlong 5 14 14.6 pp. 72–73 *Nurhaci’s second daughter got married at the age of 29, but this seems incorrect. If counted, the average marriage age would be 14.7. If not, it would be 12.7. Transformation of Social Institutions 207 Like ancestors in the Jin dynasty, the Jurchens before 1644 followed many matrimonial practices, including levirate, sororate, crosscousin , incestuous, and cross-generational unions. All were popular among nomadic peoples in the steppes but were discouraged and even forbidden in China. My focus will be on the last two forms of matrimony because, one, they were related and, two, they were prohibited by Hong Taiji. Broadly, one may consider the incestuous marriage a form of matrimony between two closely related individuals of different or the same generations. After his father, Eidu, died, Turgei (1596– 1645), a warrior, married his stepmother, a princess. Hooge, once nominated to succeed Hong Taiji, and Yoto (d. 1638), the eldest son...