Social Divisions
During the Han Dynasty the social classes were split into various divisions. These divisions included the rich, the royal family, the poor, merchants, craftsmen, farmers, and more. The jobs in cities were given to the educated people and the nobles, thus making them rich. The rich lived in astonishing palace like homes, decorated with the best quality drapery, carpets, jewels, and many other rare or expensive objects. The rich would furnish their tombs with sculptures. On the sculptures, they added text mentioning how much each item had cost or how rare the item is. The rich lived comfortably with many luxuries. Their homes were built around Greek or Roman influenced courtyards consisting of painted walls with floral designs. Children were tutored in science, math, literature, art, religion, music, and other subjects. The rich did not approve of the use of the public schools, therefore they did not use them. Conversely, the poor lived in conjoined shacks. They had small portions of food, and their homes and streets were not very sanitary. Many of the younger men joined gangs which often roamed the streets of cities terrorizing people. Their homes consisted of a small mat for a bed, a fire pit, and a pot for the bathroom. Compared to the rich, the poor lived in very harsh conditions and worked harder for less. Merchants and craftsmen were never recognized until canals were built, then shortly after some became rich. Some merchants became successful and built mansions with extravagant pools and gardens. However, this infuriated officials and peasants. Farmers lived in multi-family homes made out of mud with tiled or thatched roofs. Multiple families lived in one home allowing them to work on a single farm together to produce more food than needed. However, farmers did not own their farms. Both men and women worked very hard. They went to bed after nightfall and got up to work at dawn. Both the Northern and Southern farmers wore scratchy rags as clothes and ate rice or wheat, dumplings, and fish.
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