Institutions In the Han Dynasty
By Riya Devgan
The Han Dynasty was a golden era in Chinese history which took place during the 1st Century BCE (Confucian) Chang’an. Throughout the Han Dynasty there were many rulers of China, however the main ruler was a man named Emperor Guangwu who ruled over China for the longest time period, even though Liu Bang was the first emperor who founded and started the Han Dynasty (Liu Bang - Emperor Gaozu of Western Han). The Han Dynasty was known for all the inventions like paper, silk, mathematics, engineering, astronomy that were discovered and created at that time. These inventions allowed science and technology in China to advance, thus making the Han Dynasty one of the greatest and influential eras in Chinese…show more content… If you were wealthy they would stay in a palace, but if you were poor you would generally live in houses made out of mud. Family life shaped the assigned roles and privileges for each gender. Males during the Han Dynasty were known to be the head of the households, along with being the only educated and working family member as women were not allowed to be educated. Women couldn't pick who they wanted to marry as their parents generally arranged their marriage based on which family they wanted to create an alliance with to help benefit their occupation or maintain a status (Patriarchy in Shaping Gender and Family Relationships). As well as women not having the privilege of marriage choice, women never got the privilege of education or maintaining a job as there set role was to be submissive to their husband and family (Life in the Han Dynasty: Family Life). However, the only time women could actually maintain a job was if she was a widow and needed to sustain her family through working as a weaver or selling products in a market. In a family women were limited to only playing the role of the caretaker, this involved nurturing, clothing, feeding the children, and helping cultivate crops in the family farm if they had one (Patriarchy in Shaping Gender and Family Relationships). Altogether, family life was imperative to the Han people as it shaped the…show more content… People wanted to show which they belonged to, and fashion was the simplest way to do so. Colors, fabrics, and accessories in fashion were used as a symbol to show where you stood in this class system. Most fashion items could have been found in local marketplaces. Generally you used the colors, fabrics, and accessories you wore to identify your status. For example, peasants generally only wore clothes made out of the fabric hemp, a rough material made from plant fibers which was durable and easy to move in when working in the farm fields. Clothes made out of hemp usually made basic clothing like pants and shirts. However the wealthy wore clothes made out of the fabric silk; silk was then used to create clothes like robes or gowns worn by the higher class. Colors of these robes or gowns also played a role in representing your status. Government officials for example wore colors associated with the 4 season. Grey and green represented spring, red represented summer, yellow represented autumn, and black represented winter. Status through clothes was so imperative that if you wore silk as a person of lower ranking (slave, farmer, peasant) you could face punishment. Despite clothes being a major representative of status, jewellery on the other hand was also a common symbol used to represent your class. The more detailed and expensive jewelry