Yuan Households, Social Status and Everyday Work in China

From 1271 to 1368, the Yuan state ruled China under Mongol leadership. Kublai Khan had claimed the Mongol throne in 1260, proclaimed the dynasty in 1271 and completed the conquest of the Southern Song in 1279. Daily work and household resources differed across this large realm, from northern dryland farms to southern irrigated agriculture and urban centres. The Yuan court was driven from Dadu in 1368; the Mongol rulers who continued north of China belong to the distinct history of the Northern Yuan.

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Households, land and obligations

Households pooled work, supported children and older relatives, and managed land or business resources. State demands could also pass through the family. A military household had to provide a soldier and help meet the costs of his service. Some Mongol garrison families received tenant harvests, yet equipment and campaigning expenses could consume that income. The state’s claim on labour therefore affected what remained for daily support.

Merchants could build family wealth through trading partnerships and local connections. At Quanzhou, maritime commerce linked households with people and goods overseas. Land, capital and skilled work offered different sources of income, while illness, debt or the absence of a serving family member could put pressure on the people who remained at home.

Servitude also affected household life. Accounts record Mongol commoners selling children into slavery. In 1291 Kublai prohibited the sale of Mongols abroad, a restriction on that trade rather than an end to slavery in the Yuan state. Enslaved artisans and other servants also worked within the imperial household, a court institution distinct from an ordinary family household.

Marriage, widowhood and property

Marriage joined families through negotiated arrangements. A 1269 ruling preserved in the Yuan dianzhang, a compilation of regulations and legal precedents, required a written contract recording gifts, the kind of marriage and its conditions, signed by the parties and a go-between. Such details mattered when relatives later disputed what had been promised or who owed support.

Not every marriage moved a woman into her husband’s parents’ home. In uxorilocal marriage the husband joined the wife’s household, making his work and rights there matters for negotiation. Death could create another dispute. Levirate marriage meant a widow marrying a male relative of her deceased husband, keeping her labour and children connected with his family. In 1317, a widow named A-Duan brought a complaint that her late husband’s younger brother had raped her and forced such a marriage. Her suit reveals coercion and a woman’s attempt to contest it through the authorities.

Property rules also affected the cost of leaving a marriage. A 1303 regulation prohibited a remarried widow or divorced woman from taking her dowry into a new union. Dowry meant the property supplied with the bride, so its loss could make remarriage economically difficult. Inheritance depended on family circumstances: rules distinguished married from unmarried daughters and considered whether a household had male heirs. Family membership, marriage and the transmission of property were closely bound together.

Yuan administration ranked people in four broad categories: Mongols; se-mu, a varied grouping of non-Mongol people from Central and Western Asia; Han, commonly used for northern subjects of the former Jin state; and Nan, or southerners, referring to subjects of the former Southern Song. These labels did not map neatly onto ethnicity. The Han category could include Jurchens and Khitans, while the Nan category included both Han Chinese and other peoples of the south. The hierarchy also reflected the order in which populations came under Mongol rule and the court’s assessments of political reliability.

Classification had practical consequences, especially for access to government. Before the examination system was restored, Kublai relied on recommendations and inherited or official privilege in appointing officials. When the examinations returned in 1315, places were allocated through quotas associated with the four categories. This reopened a route into government for scholars but preserved distinctions in access. The categories did not, however, determine a person’s wealth or influence. Historian Frederick W. Mote described the categories in terms of institutional and legal privilege, distinguishing them from a ranking based on actual wealth or social influence.

Rural work and regional farming

Rural livelihoods depended on seasonal work and local conditions. Farming involved tasks such as ploughing, sowing, irrigation and cultivation, alongside activities including raising mulberry trees for sericulture, the production of silk. The equipment and methods used differed by region. Northern farming relied more on techniques suited to relatively dry land, while southern agriculture made greater use of irrigation. A tool used in one region might be unfamiliar elsewhere, so the spread of practical knowledge could matter as much as the invention of new equipment.

The official Wang Zhen’s Nong Shu , completed in 1313, catalogued crops, farming methods, tools, irrigation devices, grain storage and food-processing equipment. It also described ways to use water power and animal power. One illustrated mill, for example, used oxen to turn a large geared wheel connected to eight smaller mills. Wang’s agricultural calendar linked the seasons and stages of the year with farming tasks and natural signs. The book was intended chiefly for local officials seeking useful methods, rather than as a manual easily read by farmers, many of whom could not read.

Urban crafts, trade and service

Urban work included trade, craft production and government service. Merchants moved goods through commercial networks, while government-associated merchants known as ortogh operated in connection with the state. Printing offers a detailed example of skilled production. Wang Zhen, who served as a local official in Jingde, developed a system for arranging wooden movable type. Characters were cut into separate pieces, sorted for selection, set into a frame and held in place with strips and wooden plugs before printing. Rare characters could be made when needed. In 1298 a local gazetteer was reportedly printed with movable type in a run of about one hundred copies. The process depended on organised stores of type and skilled labour, rather than on a single worker performing every stage.

Registered artisan households owed skilled work to the government, while other service registrations covered military duty, relay transport or salt production. These were inherited obligations attached to households, distinct from the origin labels used in recruitment. Commercial work existed alongside service: a family could possess a skill with market value while also having to satisfy official demands.

Tools, goods and household production

Work depended on objects for processing, storing and moving produce. Wang’s catalogue includes grain stores, carts, boats and textile equipment. Milling grain, preserving a harvest and transporting goods turned agricultural production into food and income. Household property thus included productive equipment as well as land and buildings.

For the wider setting, see Daily Life in Yuan China: Households, Work, Food and Worship.