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Thailand Social and Political Development
The king stood at the apex of a highly stratified social and
political hierarchy that extended throughout the society. In
Ayutthayan society the basic unit of social organization was the
village community composed of extended family households.
Generally the elected headmen provided leadership for communal
projects. Title to land resided with the headman, who held it in
the name of the community, although peasant proprietors enjoyed
the use of land as long as they cultivated it.
With ample reserves of land available for cultivation, the
viability of the state depended on the acquisition and control of
adequate manpower for farm labor and defense. The dramatic rise
of Ayutthaya had entailed constant warfare and, as none of the
parties in the region possessed a technological advantage, the
outcome of battles was usually determined by the size of the
armies. After each victorious campaign, Ayutthaya carried away a
number of conquered people to its own territory, where they were
assimilated and added to the labor force.
Every freeman had to be registered as a servant, or
phrai (see Glossary), with the local lord, or
nai
(see Glossary), for military service and corvee labor on public
works and on the land of the official to whom he was assigned.
The phrai could also meet his labor obligation by paying a
tax. If he found the forced labor under his nai repugnant,
he could sell himself into slavery to a more attractive
nai, who then paid a fee to the government in compensation
for the loss of corvee labor. As much as one-third of the
manpower supply into the nineteenth century was composed of
phrai.
Wealth, status, and political influence were interrelated.
The king allotted rice fields to governors, military commanders,
and court officials in payment for their services to the crown,
according to the
sakdi na (see Glossary) system. The size
of each official's allotment was determined by the number of
persons he could command to work it. The amount of manpower a
particular nai could command determined his status
relative to others in the hierarchy and his wealth. At the apex
of the hierarchy, the king, who was the realm's largest
landholder, also commanded the services of the largest number of
phrai, called phrai luang (royal servants), who
paid taxes, served in the royal army, and worked on the crown
lands. King Trailok established definite allotments of land and
phrai for the royal officials at each rung in the
hierarchy, thus determining the country's social structure until
the introduction of salaries for government officials in the
nineteenth century.
The Chinese alone stood outside this social structure. They
were not obliged to register for corvee duty, so they were free
to move about the kingdom at will and engage in commerce. By the
sixteenth century, the Chinese controlled Ayutthaya's internal
trade and had found important places in the civil and military
service. Most of these men took Thai wives because few women left
China to accompany the men.
The sixteenth century witnessed the rise of Burma, which,
under an aggressive dynasty, had overrun Chiang Mai and Laos and
made war on the Thai. In 1569 Burmese forces, joined by Thai
rebels, captured the city of Ayutthaya and carried off the royal
family to Burma. Dhammaraja (1569-90), a Thai governor who had
aided the Burmese, was installed as vassal king at Ayutthaya.
Thai independence was restored by his son, King Naresuan (1590-
1605), who turned on the Burmese and by 1600 had driven them from
the country
(see
fig. 5).
Determined to prevent another treason like his father's,
Naresuan set about unifying the country's administration directly
under the royal court at Ayutthaya. He ended the practice of
nominating royal princes to govern Ayutthaya's provinces,
assigning instead court officials who were expected to execute
policies handed down by the king. Thereafter royal princes were
confined to the capital. Their power struggles continued, but at
court under the king's watchful eye.
In order to ensure his control over the new class of
governors, Naresuan decreed that all freemen subject to
phrai service had become phrai luang, bound
directly to the king, who distributed the use of their services
to his officials. This measure gave the king a theoretical
monopoly on all manpower, and the idea developed that since the
king owned the services of all the people, he also possessed all
the land. Ministerial offices and governorships--and the sakdi
na that went with them--were usually inherited positions
dominated by a few families often connected to the king by
marriage. Indeed, marriage was frequently used by Thai kings to
cement alliances between themselves and powerful families, a
custom prevailing through the nineteenth century. As a result of
this policy, the king's wives usually numbered in the dozens.
Even with Naresuan's reforms, the effectiveness of the royal
government over the next 150 years should not be overestimated.
Royal power outside the crown lands--although in theory absolute-
-was in practice limited by the looseness of the civil
administration. The influence of central government ministers was
not extensive beyond the capital until the late nineteenth
century.
Data as of September 1987
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