Domestic Records (Themiclesia)

Domestic Records (戶籍, gha'-dzjak, /ɣɒʔ.d͡zʲak/) are a chronicle of changes that occur in each administrative household, practiced in Themiclesia and, in a similar sense, in Menghe.

Administrative households

An administrative household is distinct from natural households in a few ways. In principle, an administrative household does not have an address, but instead is attached to the next-higher administrative division, such as a commune in urban settings or hamlets in rural places. More accurately, communes and villages are comprised of households under their jurisdiction: each commune was supposed to contain around 50 – 100 households, and each village was envisioned with ten or so hamlets. This stands in contrast with the larger administrative divisions, such as counties and prefectures, whose jurisdictions were fixed geographically rather than through a set number of households.

Such a structure evolved out of reasons of convenience in a sparsely populated landscape. Themiclesians historically lived in large kinship groups called clans, perhaps having as many as hundreds of related individuals; they also tended to possess a certain number of tenants and slaves. As an acknowledgement to the extant structure of the household (but not necessarily that of the nuclear family), a number of administrative processes were conducted on the household level, rather than on an individual basis, e.g. the collection of survey data was done by the householder on behalf of his entire household. Certain taxes and obligations were also assessed on the household as a whole; this does not mean such taxes or obligations were regressive, since households are still classified by size, and such a system permits the state to exclude, for example, a household of one man taking care of his elderly grandparents, from military service, which would deprive the elderly of their sustenance.

Moreover, since a household formed part of the hamlet or commune, it cannot be easily moved, physically or administratively, to another jurisdiction, though specific addresses can move within the same jurisdiction and can vary between individuals. Households therefore tended to survive its members, forming administrative units lasting centuries and heavily invested in its community.

Structure

A household consists of at least one member, of whom one is the householder (戶主). Excluding single-member households, by default the husband functioned as the householder for life, and his wife after him, and legitimate children by order of birth, etc. Most households are formed when a newly-wed couple decide to settle in a place other than either spouse's original household; they therefore establish a new household with two members, and their issue automatically enroll into the same household. Conversely, if the couple decide not to form a new household (which carried with it certain benefits and additional obligations), they would become members of one spouse's household; this is the husband's household by tradition, though by no means administratively mandatory. Aside from the householder, there are no special positions within the household; each member, though classified by age for taxation/conscription purposes, is more or less equal otherwise.

A typical Domestic Record begins by stating that the household is the nth household of a certain hamlet, village, and county. The date of formation and its original members are given. The main body of the Domestic Record is effectively a ledger of additions and removals of members. Whenever an offspring is born to a member of the household, it is by default added to the household; the same occurs when a couple becomes married and decides to settle in one of their households. In the latter case, the household where the couple decided to settle would see an addition, while the one from which one spouse left would be marked with a removal, noting the cause of marriage. If a household member dies, he is marked as removed due to death. Therefore, the Domestic Record is an exhaustive history of the membership of the administrative household. If all members of a household are removed, the household itself is marked as closed.

Transcripts

While there is no record per se maintained for each individual, by investigating one's arrival and departure in each household, one's personal history can be reconstructed from discrete records, across multiple households and jurisdictions. Because one is born into one's parents' household, and one's offsprings are born into one's household, one's lineage and progeny can also be charted extensively. Equally, when one becomes married or divorced, one would be cited as a cause for a spouse's addition or removal into one's household. This process results in the larger portion of a Domestic Record Transcript (戶籍謄本), particular to each individual, and which is accepted as an authoritative piece of ID. The Domestic Records can be said to attribute a set of very concrete and solid data and relationships to oneself, so that "disappearing off the radar" is a unlikely danger.

A Transcript can be produced in varying levels of detail according to the requirements of the holder. The most basic version contains the personal histories of the holder, his parents, and his grandparents. Abbreviated histories are given for great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. Previously, when clerks were employed to trace each lineage by hand, Transcripts were quite expensive to produce and represented a cost to the holder; digitization of Domestic Record databases, which are maintained indefinitely, have permitted a Transcript to be compiled by computer and produced almost instantly. Nevertheless, due to privacy considerations, only one's direct ancestry is visible to one from the sixth generation and beyond, since the personal histories of cousins so remotely related may not represent pertinent information for one's use; hence, one can view the personal histories of anyone who shares a great-great-great-grandparent with one. The same limitation applies, at the fourth generation, for one's in-laws.

Other content

Aside from the information listed above, a Domestic Record also specifies for its members:

• Current address
• Real property held
• Place and date of birth
• Place and date of first entry into Domestic Record (and where it is, if different from current)
• Previous households
• Marital status
• Legitimacy (Themiclesia permitted concubinage prior to 1874, their offspring having a lower priority in matters of estate)

Variants and derivatives

There are four other types of record similar in nature and function to Domestic Records, each meant for a specific class of individuals. These are the Military Record, Police Record, Academic Record, and White (or Provisional) Record. The Military Record is similar to the Domestic Record, except it is for professional soldiers assigned to a permanent unit; this unit is akin to a "household" in the administrative sense. It is distinct from the unit itself, which serves primarily military purposes; the Military Record is usually synchronized with the unit's records, but it is referenced by the civil establishment to tax and otherwise control the soldier population. Their long separation from their native households may have justified their removal at one point, but most soldiers seem to think this practice somewhat pointless, since soldiers no longer have a distinct stigma that the Military Record was supposed to impose. The Police Record is largely identical in function.

The Academic Record is maintained exclusively by each university. It is the foundation of academic independence, administratively removing students and faculty from the control of the lay establishment. Note that the Academic Record is the school-based analogue of the Domestic Record, recording the student's entry, exit, college of residence, and numerous other facts; it is not a certificate of academic performance.

The so-called "White Record" is technically translated as Provisional Record, though in Shinasthana it literally reads "White Record". This is opposed to the "Amber Record" that was a nickname for the Domestic Records, which were written on paper stained with a solution with anti-bacterial and anti-decay properties, which also happens to dye the sheet amber. Provisional Records were written on plain paper instead, which are white. This is used in a slightly different manner, mostly for immigrants that have not yet settled permanently.

Historical significance

Domestic Records permitted, as primarily intended, the central government of Themiclesia to analyze the population it governed in greater detail than was possible without. It further enabled the government to impose its policies on not merely local officials, but down to the very basic levels of social organization, and the same avenue with which to assess the needs of the public and their ability to contribute to state projects. Hence it has been realized and characterized by officials in the past as the "foundation of government" (政治之所賴). Without these Records, the government cannot plan and expend its resources efficiently and effectively, since the quantity of said resources and their forthcomingness would be unkonwn. On a more advanced level, it also permitted the government to take advantage of existing social structures (such as the family) and thereby reducing its administrative burden, as well as tailor its policies for each type of household so as to avoid unreasonable demands placed on households or individuals not in a position to provide, possibly conditioning resentment and revolt.

The maintenance of the Domestic Record throughout the turbulence of the 19th and early 20th Centuries may have been responsible for some of the (relative) ease that Themiclesia experienced in its transition from an agricultural to industrial economy. Though by all accounts an expensive system to upkeep, it is known from foreign accounts that Themiclesian households had access to government resources directly founded upon the Domestic Records. For example, during the epidemic of 1895, the government was able to organize medical relief and medicinal deliveries directly corresponding to the size of each afflicted household. Without it, many of the very ill could not have received these grants in person and perhaps would have died as a result. The same is true in relief efforts for other types of natural disasters, and around the same time the government began calculating the average tax burden on each family and changing the tax rates accordingly, rather than imposing a uniform rate, which often was regressive in operation. Though not spectacular, the accuracy of the Domestic Records may have served to soothe social tensions by promoting fairer and more delicate governance.

Analysis and criticism

The Domesitc Records face two main sources of criticism. Population control, the more acute of the two, has been asserted by Casaterran scholars since the 19th Century. Because the system is still in force, some scholars considers it an instrument of population control that infringes on personal liberties. The Themiclesian government made a statement in the 1950s addressing this criticism, claiming that "detailed knowledge of the conditions around every citizen is the only way government can serve him properly". It should be noted that Themiclesians were not permitted to leave their home counties without prior authorization until 1854; those that did were labelled "migrants" and subject to a variety of penalties, sporadically applied, for their departure from their households. In retrospect, the objective of this restriction would have appeared obvious in an agricultural economy: if individuals left the land they tilled, then food production would dip, and the government would lose revenue. J. J. Thomas of Tyran states, "This is not population control for its own sake; it is employment control."

Yet whatever merits it may have possessed, it formed a bottleneck on population movement to industrializing areas since the 1840s. Government revenue, until restructuring in 1853, was primarily derived from agriculture; this dependence prevented the government from lifting the ban on migration. The government's reticence on collecting industrial taxation was partly due to its superarogatory imposition under Ga Trjeds (prime minister 1838–45), which caused rampant economic disturbances, and otherwise out of a concern that taxation may snuff out the nascent industrial scene. After 1854, Themiclesians were at liberty to migrate, as long as they notified their local governments of their destination, which was their Adoptive Record (寄籍), as opposed to their Original Record (本籍). Originally, one was meant to obsolete the other, though soon it was understood that both had their uses. Certain services had to be organized near the physical location of the individual, while he still forms an integral part of his household, whether financially or technically. In time, the Adoptive and Original Records were considered complementary to each other, permitting the government to take either the perspective of the household or the individual, as either seemed more appropriate. This is particularly of utility since early migrants were mainly young men without spouse, and they would not have been entered into the Domestic Record where they settled and thus became non-persons to the government.