Basic Social Structures

Han China

• strong emperor with the Mandate of Heaven
• large bureaucracy

Rome

• society was divided into citizens and noncitizens, who were subject people with no rights
• Upper-class patricians and lower class plebeians
• Wealth and ancestry determined one's place in the Roman social divisions
• Family heads (paterfamilias) were male and had power over wife and children
• Women could not vote but could divorce and influence the family's financial affairs

India

• caste system divided society into specific social classes

Bantu Africa

• established farming communities in an area populated by a few groups of hunter-gatherers
• gave Africa a sense of cultural unity

• Monarchy - rule by single leader
• Oligarchy - rule by small elite
• Republic - most citizens play a role in government (Rome)
  
• Democracy - political rights to all adult citizens (Athens)
  
• Independent city- states - Greece
• Parliament (law making body) and Nobility - assist Monarch in ruling

• Hierarchy - social class rankings
• Social Mobility - the ability for an individual to more from one class to another
• Patriarchies - male dominated societies