p5ch5social

Name:Brittney Woods

 * **Theme** || **How does this theme apply to your civilization?** ||
 * Gender roles and relations || * Chinese Society vested authority principally in elderly males who headed their households.
 * Women's duties included mostly indoor activites such as wine making and weaving, whereas men spent most of their time outside, working in fields, hunting, and fishing.
 * Chinese society honored female members of the family even though they did not have authority
 * The male head of the family held the ceremonies honoring ancestors spirits.
 * Women lived increasingly in the shadow of men. ||
 * Family and kinship || * The early dynastys ruled their territories largely through family and kinship groups.
 * In China the extended family played a prominent role in the shaping of both private and public affairs during the Shang and Zhou dynastys.
 * In the early days agricultural people in China believed that if they diligently tended to the graves of their ancestors that their spirits would support and protect their surviving family. ||
 * Racial and ethnic constructions ||  ||
 * Social and economic classes || * During the Shang and Zhou dynastys the royal family occupied the most honored positions in Chinese Society.
 * Aristocrats were also honored as they posessed exteensive land holdings and they worked administrative and military tasks.
 * There was a sizeable class of slaves most of whom were enemy warriors captured during battles.
 * Many slaves performed hard labor or were sacreficed during funerary, religious or other types of rituals. ||