<P> Aside from the biographies found in the Standard Histories, it became popular amongst gentrymen to write stylistic essays and commission private biographies on other gentlemen . These privately published biographies focused either on gentrymen from one's locality or more well known figures who held national prominence . </P> <P> The rhapsody, known as fu in Chinese, was a new literary genre . The poet and official Sima Xiangru (179--117 BCE) wrote several rhapsodies, yet his largest and most influential was the "Rhapsody on the Son of Heaven on a Leisurely Hunt" (Tianzi Youlie Fu 天子 遊 獵 賦) written in debate form . Sima's rhapsodies incorporated literary elements found in the Songs of Chu--an anthology of poems attributed to Qu Yuan (340--278 BCE) and Song Yu (fl . 3rd century BCE)--such as flying with heavenly immortals . Yang Xiong was the other prominent fu writer of Western Han, and although he at first praised Sima's work, he later criticized it as an example of the genre's shortcomings . In Eastern Han, Ban Gu wrote a rhapsody comparing the capital cities Chang'an and Luoyang, in which he concluded that Luoyang was the better of the two (which was a subtle praise of the current emperor, hinting that his virtue surpassed the rulers of Western Han). The court astronomer and inventor Zhang Heng (78--139 CE) also wrote rhapsodies on the capital cities which were inspired by those of Ban Gu . Zhang also penned the rhapsody "Returning to the Fields", which fused Daoist and Confucian ideals as well as laid the groundwork for later metaphysical nature poetry . </P> <P> Zhang Heng also wrote "Lyric Poems on Four Sorrows" (四 愁 詩), which represent the earliest heptasyllabic shi poems in Chinese literature . The government's Music Bureau also produced folk songs and yuefu, a lyrical form of verse that became a standard subgenre of shi poetry . These poems focused largely on issues of morality that Confucian scholars found acceptable and in - line with Zhou dynasty traditions . Poets of the Jian'an (建安) period (196--220 CE) usually attended the same social events to compose poems on a given topic in one another's company . </P> <P> By the Han dynasty, written law had matured from its archaic form based largely on natural law and social customs into a rational corpus influenced by politics and based on positive law . However, the Han dynasty law code established by Chancellor Xiao He (d . 193 BCE) was largely an extension of an existing Qin dynasty law code . Evidence for this includes archaeological finds at Qin - era Shuihudi and Han - era Zhangjiashan . The nine chapters of the law code consisted of statutes which dealt with criminality, while two of these chapters dealt with court procedure . Although it survives only in small fragments, it was allegedly a massive written work on 960 written scrolls . The code had 26,272 articles written in 7,732,200 words that outlined punishments . There were 490 articles on the death penalty alone which contained 1,882 offenses and 3,472 analogies or pieces of case law . </P>

By the end of the ming dynasty the nuclear family had become the basic unit of chinese society