Portal:Society

Chinese society during the Song Dynasty was marked by political and legal reforms, a philosophical revival of Confucianism, and the development of cities beyond administrative purposes into centers of trade, industry, and maritime commerce. The inhabitants of rural areas were mostly farmers, although some were also hunters, fishers, or government employees working in mines or the salt marshes. Contrarily, shopkeepers, artisans, city guards, entertainers, laborers, and wealthy merchants lived in the county and provincial centers along with the Chinese gentry—a small, elite community of educated scholars and scholar-officials. The military also provided a means for advancement in Song society for those who became officers, even though soldiers were not highly-respected members of society. Although certain domestic and familial duties were expected of women in Song society, they nonetheless enjoyed a wide range of social and legal rights in an otherwise patriarchal society. Women's improved rights to property came gradually with the increasing value of dowries offered by brides' families. Daoism and Buddhism were the dominant religions of China in the Song era, the latter deeply impacting many beliefs and principles of Neo-Confucianism throughout the dynasty. The Song justice system was maintained by policing sheriffs, investigators, official coroners, and exam-drafted officials who acted as magistrates.

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Extermination of Evil is a set of five paintings believed to have been created in the 12th century, depicting traditional Asian deities banishing evil. The paintings are collectively listed as a National Treasure of Japan and held at the Nara National Museum. Clockwise, from top left: Sendan Kendatsuba, Shinchū, Bishamonten, Tenkeisei, and Shōki.

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• ... that among long-term prisoners held at Akershus Fortress (pictured) in the 19th century were Norwegian career criminals Gjest Baardsen and Ole Høiland, and Sami rebel Lars Hætta?
• ... that the 1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała in Poland forced several officials to lose their jobs?
• ... that members of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors include United Kingdom's most experienced and successful songwriters like Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Elton John?

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• 9 June 1886 - Centennial celebration of the foundation of the Stoughton Musical Society
• 14 June 1957 - IEEE Education Society was formed as the IRE Professional Group on Education
• 24 June 1834 - The Canadiens founded what would become the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society
• 30 June 1897 - Foundation of the Shanghai Foot Emancipation Society (foot binding pictured)

“ Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate oddfellow society. ” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

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Harriet Arbuthnot was an early 19th-century English diarist, social observer and political hostess on behalf of the Tory party. During the 1820s she was the "closest woman friend" of the hero of Waterloo and British Prime Minister, the 1st Duke of Wellington. She maintained a long correspondence and association with the Duke, all of which she recorded in her diaries, which are consequently extensively used in all authoritative biographies of the Duke of Wellington. Born into the periphery of the British aristocracy and married to a politician and member of the establishment, she was perfectly placed to meet all the key figures of the Regency and late Napoleonic eras. Recording meetings and conversations often verbatim, she has today become the "Mrs Arbuthnot" quoted in many biographies and histories of the era. Her observations and memories of life within the British establishment are not confined to individuals but document politics, great events and daily life with an equal attention to detail, providing historians with a clear picture of the events described. Her diaries were themselves finally published in 1950 as The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot. (Full article...)

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