明代奴仆与社会

明代前期，政府采取了有限豢养奴仆的政策，限定了奴仆数量的增长和使用范围的扩大。由于地权的集中和赋役负担的不均，自中期后导致了基层社会体系的破坏，大量的自耕农沦为奴仆，从而使奴仆存养现象普遍化。同期由于市镇经济和商品货币经济的发展、乡绅及各社会阶层对社会经济发展的积极介入，使奴仆具有多种类型，而各类奴仆的活动多带有时代特征。奴仆可分为勋戚奴仆、缙绅奴仆、文人奴仆和庶民奴仆诸种类型；不同类型奴仆的实际地位和主仆关系表现出较大差异。虽然明代奴仆的最终法定地位未能发生根本性变化，但在实际生活中，由于奴仆经济活动方式和范围的变化，经济实力的增强和社会观念的变动，江浙地区一些地方的奴仆在就学、婚姻等方面已取得了和平民相同或趋近的社会权利，这是明代社会整体变化的必然结果。

The Servants and the Society of Ming Dynasty

In the early days of Ming Dynasty,the policy of keeping limit ed servant s taken by the government had confined the growth of servant population and the expanding of servant use.From the middle period,the basic society was destroyed and many yeomen were reduced to servants,because of land centralization and ineq ality of taxes and labor services.All the servants can be divided into four type s,which were high-ranking officers and royal relatives' servant,general officer s and rustic gentry's servant,men of letters' servant and common people's serva nt.Though status of servants stipulated by laws hadn't been altered fundamental ly by the late Ming,a few servants lived in Jiangsu and Zhejiang districts,in so m e fields such as studying in official schools,marriage with commoners and so on, had actually obtained the rights that commoners could enjoy,due to the developm ent of township economy,the lifting of economic status of servants and the inten se social changes.