Konbaung Dynasty - Society

Society

During Konbaung rule, society was centred around the Konbaung king. The rulers of the Konbaung Dynasty took several wives and they were ranked, with half-sisters of the king holding the most powerful positions. The Konbaung kings fathered numerous children, creating a huge extended royal family which formed the power base of the dynasty and competed over influence at the royal court. It also posed problems of succession at the same time often resulting in royal massacres carried out in such a way that royal blood must not be shed.

Burmese society was highly stratified during Konbaung rule. Under the royal family, the nobility administered the government, led the armies, and governed large population centres. The Konbaung Dynasty kept a detailed lineage of Burmese nobility written on palm leaf manuscripts, peisa, that were later destroyed by British soldiers. At the local level, the myothugyi (မြို့သူကြီး), hereditary local elites, administered the townships controlled by the kingdom.

Konbaung society was divided into four general classes:

1. Royals (မင်းမျိုး, min myo)
2. Brahmins (ပုဏ္ဏားမျိုး, ponna myo)
3. Merchants (သူဌေးမျိုး, thahtay myo)
4. Commoners (ဆင်းရဲသားမျိုး, sinyetha myo)

Society also distinguished between the free and slaves (ကျွန်မျိုး, kyun myo), who were indebted persons or prisoners of war (including those brought back from military campaigns in Arakan, Ayuthaya, and Manipur), but could belong to one of the four classes. There was also distinction between taxpayers and non-taxpayers. Tax-paying commoners were called athi (အသည်), whereas non-taxpaying individuals, usually affiliated to the royal court or under government service, were called ahmudan (အမှုထမ်း).