ABSTRACT
THE imperial government was not alone in exercising jurisdiction over individuals. I come now to two other agencies of control. The tsu 1 is defined as an exogamous patrilineal group of males descended from a founding ancestor, plus their wives and unmarried daughters. 2 It consisted of a number of lines of descent called fang (which might be further segmented into chih, p’ai—meaning branch, sect and so on), each with its constituent chia (families); it could include any number of people scattered over several villages, unless the individual fang, p’ai or chia broke away and established new tsu. Members of a tsu shared the same surname, though it was exceptional for this to be exclusive to them; what was distinctive in a particular tsu—and a guide to seniority—was the giving of the same character, often in the order of the words in a poem, to members of the same generation as part of the personal name, ming. 3 Genealogies were kept, showing how descent was traced and how members were related both to one another and, by marriage, to other tsu. In prosperous tsu these were printed.
