巴的氏族内的五个群体家庭与姜寨聚落遗存中的五个房屋群落

Uniformity of the Five Group Marriage Families in the Ba Clan with the Five Clusters of Houses in the Relics of the Jiangzhai Settlement

由秦兼并巴时对巴的氏族的君长征收赋税的税额推算出了巴的氏族的纳税人口,又由这以后减免氏族赋税的条款推导出的氏族中还存在五个与群婚相适应的群体家庭①。巴的氏族中的五个群体家庭与姜寨聚落遗存中的五个房屋群落的一致,揭示了他们的社会组织结构都由对偶同居的夫妻组合构成的群体所组成,是由群婚向一夫一妻制家庭过渡的中间形式。以261个纳税人口为框架所设计的三个表,说明了群体家庭人口的蕃衍变化,以及氏族内人员的流动,揭示了这一时期所特有的氏族内五个群体间人员的自行运转与相互调节的机制,也表明了巴的氏族内五个群体家庭的推测有其真实的基础。

The year 316 BC saw the annexation of the Ba State by the Qin State, which imposed tax on the Ba people. The tax for the head of the Ba clan was koufu 2 016 qian each year and yifu 1 800 qian once three years. Supposing that per person koufu of Ba in the Han Dynasty is equal to the average tax of each person twice imposed by the Qin, it is easy to calculate the estimated number of taxpayers of the Ba clan, which is 261. Historically, this is the first time we calculate that number. King Qin Zhaoxiang formulated the law to reduce the tax of the Ba Clan. According to the law, the tax of the clan should be reduced if a family had no more than 10 wives. We thus learn that there was a kind of family that had far more 10 wives at that time. It would be best to explain this kind of family is a group marriage family. It can be estimated that the number of such families in one 261 taxpayers' clan is about 5. Based on the framework of this proportion, the author compiled a table to reflect the situation of the people in a clan. A man got married at age 30 years old. When he reached 60, his child born in the year of his marriage was 30, which meant the year for marriage. So 30 years is the circle period for calculation of the population of the group family in the table, from which it can be seen that the married men are the center of the clan, and 1 family is formed every 6 years. When a clan containing 261 taxpayers first formed families, each family would have 20 couples. The men of the new family came from no less than 4 families of the clan, and their children should be distributed to the 4 families. This is the formation of the 5 families in the clan. Here, we can see an operational mechanism, which could overcome the contradiction between the group marriage and the women's long childbearing age. Based on the contradiction, Friedrich Engels conjectured that the group marriage units should be dismissed for reconstruction once for 3 or 4 generations, because the age differences made them unable to live in the same family group. The reconstruction of the group family once 6 years could solve this contradiction properly. This mechanism would primarily prevent the formation of the monogamous family in the inner clan.The discovery of the 5 clusters of houses in the relics of the Jiangzhai settlement in Shaanxi Province is a positive answer to the author's conjecture. Each of the 5 clusters has 20 small houses, 1 big house and 1 middle house; the 5 clusters surrounded a central square, which formed a special arrangement. The 20 couples of the 5 group families could just be distributed into the 20 houses when the families came into being. Each couple lived in a small house, which means that they lived a pairing life. When their children were old enough, they would be arranged to live in the big or middle house. When boys were 30 and girls were 23, they would get married and leave their original residences to form a new colony. Such an operational mechanism in the inner clan is proved by the 20 small houses of each cluster in the relics of Jiangzhai, because there are more or less couples in different times due to the uneven development in natural conditions. The social organizational structure of the Ba clan is identical to that of the Jiangzhai settlement. Such a structure was just intermediate form that Engels was seeking in his 'The Origin of Family, Private Ownership and Nation', by which the group marriage was transmitted to monogamy family. 