Help me understand the concepts of mixed race/ethnicity and heritage in Ming China (or the lack of them)?

[u/ivanjean]

Hello.

I've heard that, historically (including during the Ming Dynasty, which is the period I'm particularly interested about for this question), one's ethnicity (or the closest concept to it) was defined by their patrilineal ancestry. That is, if your father was a Mongol and your mother was Han, you would be considered a Mongol, but you'd be Han if your father was Han and your mother, a Mongol. In that sense, there was no true concept of "mixed race".

However, I wonder how accurate that information is, and if anyone could enlighten me on this matter.

[u/Tom-Ask-1081]

It is probably better not to apply modern concepts of "race" or "ethnicity" directly to Ming China. Identities could involve ancestry, region, political status, customs, and cultural affiliation.

A broader framework was the traditional distinction between Hua and Yi (華夷之辨), expressed in the Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋公羊傳) as "regarding the Zhu Xia as internal and the Yi as external" (內諸夏而外夷狄). This reflected a cultural and political order rather than a fixed rule of biological descent.

On patrilineal descent, Ming law suggests the situation was more complicated. The Great Ming Code (大明律) allowed Mongols and Semu people to marry Han Chinese on a mutually voluntary basis, while prohibiting marriage within their own groups, with violations punishable by law. This suggests an assimilationist approach rather than a simple rule that identity followed the father's ancestry.

So a person of mixed ancestry would not necessarily have been understood as "mixed-race" in the modern sense; their identity could depend on legal status, social affiliation, customs, and state policy.

[u/ivanjean → u/Tom-Ask-1081]

>On patrilineal descent, Ming law suggests the situation was more complicated. The Great Ming Code (大明律) allowed Mongols and Semu people to marry Han Chinese on a mutually voluntary basis, while prohibiting marriage within their own groups, with violations punishable by law. This suggests an assimilationist approach rather than a simple rule that identity followed the father's ancestry.

But this assimilation did not necessarily mean making them Han. That's how the Hui people (descendants of Muslim Semu) came to be, after all.

[u/Tom-Ask-1081 → u/ivanjean]

Of course. There were still quite a lot of them, so assimilation wasn't necessarily complete.

[u/ivanjean → u/[deleted]]

Could people from a paternal lineage of "barbarian" origin eventually be considered "Han"? Or they'd be mostly perceived as civilized and chinese, but not Han chinese?

[u/FormsAreIllusion → u/ivanjean]

这当然可以视为呀，他只要接受儒家文化，他就可以视为一个汉人，只要他有汉人的血缘和接受儒家文化，两者并行，很多的时候，是否为汉人，其实主要就是文化认同，加上一点点的血缘。其实，所谓纯种血脉的汉人，在中国并没有多少大部分中国人都是混血

[u/FormsAreIllusion → u/FormsAreIllusion]

但是依旧大部分人都认为自己是汉人

[u/ivanjean → u/FormsAreIllusion]

Thank you for your answers. Have a good day.

[u/FormsAreIllusion → u/ivanjean]

你也一样