Society and Inequality in Afro-Eurasia (500 B.C.E. -> 500 C.E.)

Question 1

What is Religious Toleration?

Answer 1

The allowing of anyone to believe in anything they want.

Question 2

What are Landlords?

Answer 2

People who owned large areas of land who made peasants pay him to live on the secure land.

Question 3

What was the difference between the housing of the Landlord and the Serfs?

Answer 3

Serfs had crappy small houses but the Landlords had luxurious mansions.

Question 4

What (social) class conflicts disrupted Chinese society?

Answer 4

Many peasants grouped up and rebelled due to horrible living conditions.

Question 5

What was life like for Peasants in Feudal China?

Answer 5

It was bad, houses were small and they only had very small farming plots. They were also vulnerable to pests that they couldn’t get rid of.

Question 6

How did higher class Chinese people see the farming Peasants?

Answer 6

They saw them as the backbone of the country, they were producing everything.

Question 7

How were merchants viewed by higher class Chinese people?

Answer 7

They were hated, they thought that the selling of someone else’s things was disgraceful.

Question 8

What is Caste (India)?

Answer 8

Organization based on race.

Question 9

What are the Varnas (India)?

Answer 9

Four different social classes in Caste-based India.

Question 10

What are the four Varna classes?

Answer 10

Brahmin (highest), Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Suda (lowest).

Question 11

What are Jatis?

Answer 11

Occupationally based groups.

Question 12

How did Karma come into play in these society groups?

Answer 12

They believed that if you were good in a previous life than good karma would all you to be born into a good group.

Question 13

Why were most people’s lives “set” when they were born in low groups?

Answer 13

It was virtually impossible to move up in group.

Question 14

What do some believe led to the invention of Slavery?

Answer 14

The domestication of animals, people believed that men were modeled after it later.

Question 15

What was one of the new slave systems incorporated during the times of the Second-Wave Civilizations (Freedom)?

Answer 15

In some places, slaves could work and eventually buy out their freedom.

Question 16

What was different in slavery in Rome compared to other civilizations of its time?

Answer 16

Slavery was hugely popular in Rome, unlike in other places.

Question 17

What caused slavery to become less popular in Rome?

Answer 17

The spread of Christianity. The amount of slaves in Rome diminished and such numbers were never seen again until the time of the United States.

Question 18

What was different in the slavery of the United States and Rome?

Answer 18

In the United States only black people were enslaved but pretty much all non-Romans were enslaved in Rome.

Question 19

Why didn’t slavery in Rome disappear completely?

Answer 19

Slaves were very convenient, so they never stopped to question the morality of what they were doing.

Question 20

What were common resistances that slaves made around the world?

Answer 20

Many slaves faked being sick, rebelled, and committed suicide.

Question 21

How was patriarchy different in different parts of the world?

Answer 21

Patriarchy wasn’t as intense everywhere, partly because of the presence of religion and its values.

Question 22

What did many Chinese women do in response to the patriarchy?

Answer 22

Some banded people together and led small rebellions against the inequalities.

Question 23

What changed in the religions of China in the later times of the Second-Wave Civilizations?

Answer 23

Confucianism became much less popular and Buddhism and Daoism became much more popular.

Question 24

What was different in the patriarchies of Athens and Sparta?

Answer 24

The patriarchy was much stronger in Athens than in Sparta, even though Athens is seen as much more rational and less militaristic.

Question 25

Who was Aspasia (Athens)?

Answer 25

Aspasia was a woman born in Greece and educated who then moved to Athens. In Athens she met with Pericles and acted as an equal to him.

Question 26

What was very different about the freedom of women now compared to Roman times?

Answer 26

Women now can do whatever they want, pretty much, but in Athens they were restricted to the home and couldn’t even be educated.

Question 27

What was one of the only ways to get better jobs and to move up in the Caste?

Answer 27

Being literate.