It is clear from the above that a gentry family should be interested in having a fair number of children.  The more sons they have, the more positions of power the family can occupy and thus, the more secure it will be; the more daughters they have, the more “political” marriages they can conclude, i.e. marriages with sons of other gentry families in positions of influence.  Therefore, gentry families in China tend to be, on the average, larger than ordinary families, while in our Western countries the leading families usually were smaller than the lower class families.  This means that gentry families produced more children than was necessary to replenish the available leading positions; thus, some family members had to get into lower positions and had to lose status.  In view of this situation it was very difficult for lower class families to achieve access into this gentry group.  In European countries the leading elite did not quite replenish their ranks in the next generation, so that there was always some chance for the lower classes to move up into leading ranks.  The gentry society was, therefore, a comparably stable society with little upward social mobility but with some downward mobility.  As a whole and for reasons of gentry self-interest, the gentry stood for stability and against change.

The gentry members in the bureaucracy collaborated closely with one another because they were tied together by bonds of blood or marriage.  It was easy for them to find good tutors for their children, because a pupil owed a debt of gratitude to his teacher and a child from a gentry family could later on nicely repay this debt; often, these teachers themselves were members of other gentry families.  It was easy for sons of the gentry to get into official positions, because the people who had to recommend them for office were often related to them or knew the position of their family.  In Han time, local officials had the duty to recommend young able men; if these men turned out to be good, the officials were rewarded, if not they were blamed or even punished.  An official took less of a chance, if he recommended a son of an influential family, and he obliged such a candidate so that he could later count on his help if he himself should come into difficulties.  When, towards the end of the second century B.C., a kind of examination system was introduced, this attitude was not basically changed.

The country branch of the family by the fact that it controlled large tracts of land, supplied also the logical tax collectors:  they had the standing and power required for this job.  Even if they were appointed in areas other than their home country (a rule which later was usually applied), they knew the gentry families of the other district or were related to them and got their support by appointing their members as their assistants.