Gentry (China)

The term "landed gentry," or "gentry," originally used for Britain, does not correspond to any single term in Chinese. One standard work remarks that under the Ming dynasty, the elite who held privileged status through passing the Imperial exams were called shenshi 紳士 or jinshen 縉紳. These literati, or scholar-officials, are "loosely known in English as the Chinese gentry." Through education this elite held a virtual monopoly on office holding, and overlapped with an unofficial elite of the wealthy. After the Tang dynasty, the Song Dynasty developed the civil service exam to replace the nine-rank system which favored nobles. Under the Song dynasty, their power and influence eclipsed that of the hereditary and largely military aristocrats. They are also called, 士紳 shishen "scholar gentry" or 、鄉紳 xiangshen "local gentry." Attempts have been made to define them as a social class who had passed the examinations and so were eligible to hold office, as well as retired mandarins or their families and descendants. Owning land was often their way of preserving wealth.

Under the Confucian class system (the four occupations) the scholar-official was at the top with farmers, artisans, and merchants below them in descending order. Since the next highest class was agricultural, scholar-officials retired to landed estates. They did not work the land themselves but hired peasants as tenant farmers. In this period of Chinese history, peasants were actually of a higher class than the merchants. The sons of these mandarins aspired to pass the imperial exams and continue the family legacy. Members of the gentry were expected to be an example to their community as Confucian gentlemen.

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