Civilizations are a group of humans living together in an organized way and have made advances in arts, science and technology, law or government. China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations; it is the only ancient civilization that has continued to this very day. The lifestyles that the ancient Chinese had is extremely different then the lifestyle that the Modern Western Civilization which includes North America and Europe currently has because of the different way that people thought and made decisions. When comparing the first two imperial dynasties of China, Qin and Han dynasty with the Modern Western Civilization, differences can be exemplified by the family roles, political structure, law and justice system, religious beliefs and institutions, and technological achievements

In Ancient China, family was the most important thing to a point where it was nearly sacred. Each family member has a specific role.  The oldest male is always the head of the family and looked over the finances and the property. Children obeyed and honoured their parents. It was very important for the Ancient Chinese to respect the elderly. People usually get married at a very young age sometimes before puberty and it was often arranged to create or strengthen a union between families. Women would move into their husband’s house when they got married and break all the ties to their own family. Men went to work while women stayed home and did house work and took care of the children. The woman was to be gentle, calm, respectful and obey their husband. Children in wealthy family received an education and those who were not worked on the family farm or for a neighbourhood shop. In Ancient China, women had no value and very little rights; they were there to populate the empire and to do housework. The Ancient Chinese believed that women should not be educated and that the more ignorant she was, the better. They would obey their father if they were not married and their husband if they were. If the women became a widow, she would then obey her son. Women could not make their own decisions. All the family roles in Ancient China were set for each family member.

In the Modern Western Civilization, there are no set roles. Every family is in a different situation. No one family member is more superior than the other. It is very common to find children rebelling against their parents and not respecting. There are inverted female and male roles where the woman work and the man stay at home.  All children have the right to receive an education and go to school.  Divorce in a family is also common in modern North America and Europe especially in the United States where one in two marriages end in divorce. In Modern Western Civilization men and women have the freedom to choose who they want to marry. Everyone has to right to pick what they want to do, unlike Ancient China it was not set in stone.

The political structure of ancient Chinese civilizations and modern Western civilization is entirely different. In Ancient China, it was a monarchy type of government where an emperor ruled like a dictator and had total control of its people. The Emperor position was passed down from father to the eldest son until the empire has been overthrown. In the Qin and Han dynasties, Emperors used the Legalist form of governments where rewards and punishments were used with Taoism to keep the order in the country. It was only later that the Han Dynasty added Confucian ideas into the former Legalist government. China was divided into 36 quadrants, and each had a civil governor, military commander and imperial inspector who writes frequent reports to the Emperor about their own quadrant. In the Han Dynasty, The Han Dynasty government was a centralized bureaucratic government headed by a prime minister. By maintaining a centralized government the Han was less harsh in rule than the Qin Dynasty. There was a basic local government in counties, which was headed by the government. The governments of the Han and Qin dynasty were different but similar in the form of an emperor and local governments.

In modern Western Civilization, there are many different types of government but they are alike. There is the democratic government where political sovereignty is held by the people and it is either implemented by the citizens or through elected representatives. There is also the Federal Republic, which is a federation of states with a republican form of government. A republican government is similar a democratic government except they follow laws and what is in print  instead of a vote of majority. There is also a constitutional monarch, where there is a monarch but also a prime minister. The monarch is not just head of the state but he or she is also a symbol of unity. The monarch does not have much responsibility when it comes to politics but he or she must sign off on every law. The governments in the Modern Western Civilization understands that their people comes first and that they rule and make decisions according to what the public want which is entirely different from the Ancient Chinese Civilization.  

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The laws and justice system of the Ancient Chinese Civilization mainly the Qin and Han Dynasties were somewhat totalitarian and were based on the theory of legalism. The peak of the Legalism theory was in the Qin Dynasty, which placed absolute power in the ruler’s hands. Emperor Qin Shihuangdi ruled with extremely strict laws, harsh punishments and took severe actions to eliminate all possible challenges to his authority. People were rewarded for telling on other who broke the law and those who were convicted on crimes were punished brutally by execution, mutilation, or penal labor. Many of the laws and acts passed under ...

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