At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, China's traditional clan organizations faced a new and complex situation, showing an unprecedented situation.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Chinese and Western cultures began to collide, compete and exchange, and with the double defeat of military and politics, the traditional Chinese cultural form also declined. At that time, the denial of tradition became a mainstream in all walks of life, and the clan organization, as one of the representatives of traditional culture, was naturally whipped. When the Qing Dynasty began to follow the written legal system of the West and promulgated the "Draft of the Great Qing Civil Law", this was in fact a signal to disintegrate the culture of China's clan system.
In 1929, the General Provisions of the Civil Code were promulgated, and the Civil Code was implemented in the Debt, Property Rights, Relatives and Inheritance. Among them, there are provisions such as abolishing the distinction between all concubines, concubines and heirs in the traditional patriarchal system, removing the restrictions on the inheritance rights of children and spouses in the old law, and weakening the power of parents. These provisions have legally swept away the conditions for the existence of traditional clans, and have truly touched the various foundations on which the patriarchal system depends.
The first was land reform.
Ancestral halls, clan fields, patriarchs, and genealogies are the elements that make up the feudal family system. Among them, the clan field is the economic foundation and the most important element. The "Survey Materials of Land Reform in June 1950 and Investigation Materials of the Gongtang Ancestral Hall of Lianhua Village, Qimen County" by the Agricultural Committee of the Party Committee of Southern Anhui District provides detailed and reliable materials for us to understand the share of the land occupied by the ancestral hall in Huizhou before the land reform and the use of the clan land.
Lianhua Administrative Village is composed of 6 natural villages, Dongtang, Xitang, Loess Pond, Xiatang, Hecun and Lianhuatang, and the residential relationship is relatively scattered, stretching for about ten miles. In total, there are 202 households in the administrative village, with a total population of 694 people, and the average household population is 344 people. There are 6 surnames in Lianhua Administrative Village, including Wu, Xiang, Yu, Wang, Huang, and Zhu, among which there are those with the same surname but different clans, such as the Huang surname is divided into 3 clans, and the remaining surname is divided into 2 clans. In fact, 6 surnames and 9 clans of different clans were formed, among which the local surname Wu was the dominant before the liberation. A total of 7 clans established ancestral halls. The ancestral hall surnamed Wu is called "Zhishun Hall", which is the largest in the village, with 982 acres of rental land. The surname Xiang is "Xiang's Ancestral Hall", the surname Yu is "Yu Dening Ancestral Hall", the surname Wang is "Wang's Ancestral Hall", the surname Huang is "Huang's Ancestral Hall", the surname Yu (the same surname is different from the ancestral hall) is "Yu's Ancestral Hall", and the surname Zhu is "Zhu Wuben Ancestral Hall".
In total, the number of acres of ancestral hall fields in the village is 1287924 acres, accounting for 58 of the total acres of land in the village5%。Among them, the surname Wu occupies the largest number of fields, and the land of the ancestral hall accounts for 45% of the cultivated land in the village14%。In Huizhou, which was mountainous and had few fields, the clan power was extremely strong, and the land controlled by them through the ancestral hall accounted for about 60% of the village, which may have been relatively special in the countryside at that time. However, it is an indisputable fact that in the vast countryside of China, the number of ancestral halls scattered all over the country occupies an unequal number of ancestral fields.
Agrarian reform was an important social change in China's modern history, aiming to abolish the land ownership system of feudal exploitation by the landlord class and realize the land ownership system of the peasants. In the process, many ancestral halls were confiscated or expropriated, and became rural public places.
The impact of land reform on the ancestral hall is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
1.Change in land ownership: The land reform shifted land from the landlords to the peasants, resulting in a fundamental change in the ownership of land held by the ancestral halls.
2.Transformation of the function of the ancestral hall: After the land reform, the ancestral hall lost its original economic foundation and material security, and its function also changed. Many ancestral halls are used as rural public places, such as schools, meeting places, etc.
3.Disintegration of clan organizations: Agrarian reform had a profound impact on clan organizations. Many clan organizations gradually disintegrated and transformed into new forms of collective economy. This weakened the clan's control over the ancestral hall and increased the independence of the ancestral hall.
The second was during the period of cooperativeization and the People's Commune movement.
After the collectivization of the land in 1956 and the establishment of the people's commune and public canteen in 1958, the ancestral hall was used as an office space, so the clan also lost its last space support. During the "Great Leap Forward", many ancestral halls were demolished, and most of the bricks and wood were diverted to other new sites.
For example, in 1958, when the people's auditorium (now a municipal cultural relics protection unit) was built in Shunde, a large number of ancestral halls were demolished, so there was a popular saying in Shunde later - "demolish the ancestral hall to build an auditorium". The cultural symbols related to the clan in the ancestral hall, such as genealogies, ancestral tablets, altar incense cases, wooden couplets and other physical objects, have been damagedThe original rituals and Xi customs of each clan were all banned as the dregs of feudal society. In this way, the explicit clan system could not survive in the rural areas, and all that remained was individual ancestor worship rituals, and the former ancestral hall became a symbolic clan relic.
Xitou Sanhuai Hall, which is listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit, is located in Xitou Village, Haiyang Town, Xiuning County, Anhui Province (formerly Xiuyang Township), which was built by Wang Jingtian in the 30th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1602), and is the ancestral hall of the Wang family, also known as the Wang Family Hall. The original three-hall and eleven-bay rooms have a total area of about 1,500 square meters. During the period of cooperativeization and people's commune, the last entrance was demolished, and the existing gatehouse and two entrances of the Xiangtang were only more than 900 square meters, which suffered irreparable losses.
Cooperativeization and people's communization are one of the important policies in the period of China's socialist construction, aiming to promote the development of the rural collective economy and socialist construction. In the process, the ancestral hall suffered another impact.
The impact of cooperativeization and people's communization on the ancestral hall is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
1.Further disintegration of clan organizations: During the period of cooperativeization and people's communalization, clan organizations were further disintegrated and transformed into new forms of collective economy. This further weakened the clan's control over the ancestral hall and further strengthened the independence of the ancestral hall.
2.Construction and management of public facilities: During the period of cooperativeization and people's commune, the construction and management of rural public facilities were strengthened. Many ancestral halls are used as places for public facilities, such as schools, medical stations, etc. This further transformed the function of the ancestral hall and made it an important place for rural public services.
3.Dilution of traditional culture: With the spread and development of new ideas and cultures, people have begun to gradually abandon traditional cultural concepts and Xi customs. As a result, the ancestral hall, a symbol of traditional culture, gradually faded and lost its important position in society.