Visible bruises carried reputational and career costs for Han families

Evidence

A family known across its locality for its calm, scholarly, well-formed sons gained marginal advantages in the recommendation phase of the chayang. A family known for its harsh disciplinary practices, whose sons appeared in public with bruises or marks, faced reputational disadvantages. The Confucian “technology of face” — Episode 12 — operated at the household level and integrated upward into the bureaucratic-selection apparatus. Families had practical, examination-related, career-related reasons to practice restrained discipline. The operational logic of the system discouraged the rod. — , The Rod and the Child, 1923