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Reading #6(Chapter 5)

In this reading we saw how the 2nd wave civilizations changed their social systems. With the agriculture booms and people starting to make more than others. Also with forms of government starting to rise of course there is going to be divisions between all of the people.

In India there was a very interesting structure. Basically there was a caste system with five levels priests, warriors, merchants, peasants, and the untouchables. A normal person would think that yeah if you happened to be born into a peasant family that is unfortunate but with hard work you might one day be able to become a merchant. However that was not the case whatever you were born into you were for the rest of your life. The only way to move up was to die that way and basically if you were a peasant you had to be a great peasant your whole life. To me this seems outrageous but to the people of the time they really believed it and they followed through with it. I could not live in a society like this. If you were part of a low class you had to basically kiss up to people above you. Women of lower classes had to expose themselves to men of higher classes.

In china there they had a similar structure but it was very different at the same time. They too had four ordered classes elite officials, landlords, merchants, and peasants. After reading about India one would assume the lowest class was the peasants but that is not the case. In china the merchants were the ones seen as the lowest of the low because it was hard to trust them. And in china they actually honored the backbone of society. That was so interesting to me and honestly if i had to choose somewhere to be poor between these two it would probably be china.

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