Author ｜
Wai-tong Chin
Abstract ｜
Since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, gentries had often expressed political views with the “unity between the monarch and the officials” argument. The expression indicated a popular new phenomenon and a new concept at the time, and differed from the traditional view on merely using “unity” between father and son, husband and wife, or between brothers in Confucian classics, especially in “Treatise on Mourning Attire” in the Book of Ceremonies（《儀禮．喪服傳》）. This paper points out that the “unity” concept as related with ceremonies and rituals gradually became part of the core discourse on the propriety of transition or sharing of political power. Consequently, the advocacy of the “unity between the monarch and the officials” was closely related with the “unity between husband and wife” or “unity between the emperor and the empress” within the context of political participation of relatives of imperial consorts. The “unity between the monarch and the officials,” combined with the “distinction between the pubic and the private,” became the key theoretical ground to cast doubt on the legitimacy of power of empresses or relatives of imperial consorts. As this concept gradually became more and more popular, it gained universal significance as a way to manage the nation. It continued to influence political order during the Wei-Jin transition and even helped to raise the political standing of the gentry. In this context, the “unity between the monarch and the officials” concept developed from the initial measure to counter the political power of relatives of imperial consorts, to the cornerstone to support the gentries’ management of politics during the Han-Jin transition. The exploration of the significance of the “unity between the monarch and the officials” argument reminds us that there existed an implicit thread as political power transitioned from relatives of imperial consorts to gentries in the imperial political power structure of the medieval period.
keywords ｜
unity between the monarch and the officials, unity between husband and wife, unity between the nation and the monarch, political power of relatives of imperial consorts, five ranks of nobility