Separately Registered Banner Households (*Linghu*)

The status of a separate household

Linghu was a term used in the administration of Qing Eight Banners household registers for persons or units recorded separately from populations subordinated within another household. Its precise application differed across documents and periods. It should not be reduced to the modern description 'setting up one's own family', since separate registration could affect review of male population, selection for military service, and existing relationships of dependence.

Registration and institutional distinctions

The household chapters of the Draft History of Qing describe a 1727 format requiring entries for separately registered individuals, their offices if any, and associated fathers, brothers, children, and dependent people. Other Qing decrees distinguished regular-status Manchu separate households from households established by people who had previously been family servants. The words linghu alone therefore cannot prove that an individual's ancestors had never stood in a dependent relationship.

Opening a household register, being recorded as linghu, and departing from banner administration to join civilian registration were not the same legal act. A person permitted to establish a separate household could remain under a previous master's supervision or under the original banner company. Rules for recruiting soldiers differed according to household status and personal standing. When the origin and date of separate registration are unknown, a biography should retain the original term rather than apply regulations from a later reign to an individual's entire life.