be used to secure a minimum of
support for every clan member and his own family, so that no member ever
could fall into utter poverty. Clan schools which were run by income
from special pieces of clan land were established to guarantee an
education for the members of the clan, again in order to make sure that
the clan would remain a part of the _elite_. Many clans set up special
marriage rules for clan members, and after some time cross-cousin
marriages between two or three families were legally allowed; such
marriages tended to fasten bonds between clans and to prevent the loss
of property by marriage. While on the one hand, a new "clan
consciousness" grew up among the gentry families in order to secure
their power, tax and corvee legislation especially in the eleventh
century induced many families to split up into small families.

It can be shown that over the next centuries, the power of the family
head increased. He was now regarded as owner of the property, not only
mere administrator of family property. He got power over life and death
of his children. This increase of power went together with a change of
the position of the ruler. The period transition (until _c_. A.D. 1000)
was followed by a period of "moderate absolutism" (until 1278) in which
emperors as persons played a greater role than before, and some
emperors, such as Shen Tsung (in 1071), even declared that they regarded
the welfare of the masses as more important than the profit of the
gentry. After 1278, however, the personal influence of the emperors grew
further towards absolutism and in times became pure despotism.

Individuals, especially family heads, gained more freedom in "Modern
Times". Not only the period of transition, but also the following period
was a time of much greater social mobility than existed in the Middle
Ages. By various legal and/or illegal means people could move up into
positions of power and wealth: we know of many merchants who succeeded
in being allowed to enter the state examina and thus got access to jobs
in the administration. Large, influential gentry families in the capital
protected sons from less important families and thus gave them a chance
to move into the gentry. Thus, these families built up a clientele of
lesser gentry families which assisted them and upon the loyalty of which
they could count. The gentry can from now on be divided into two parts.
First, there was a "big gentry" which consisted of much fewer fa