History of non-Christian Religions — Topic 10
10.1 General Remarks.
Confucius (the Latinized form of Kong Fuzi, “Master Kong”) lived from 551 to 479 BCE. According to historical tradition, he had some 3,000 disciples, among whom 72 were recognized as outstanding masters of the traditional arts. Confucius does not begin his ethical system from the premise of abstract love or punitive justice; rather, he begins from the observation that society is structured around five fundamental relationships, and that social harmony depends on their proper rectification.
Confucius was a descendant of the noble Kong clan. His genealogy, carefully studied by medieval Chinese authors, goes back to a loyal follower of the Zhou emperor Cheng Wang named Wei Zi, who for his loyalty and valor was granted the fief (kingdom) of Song along with the corresponding title of zhuhou. The Kong clan, however, eventually fell into poverty.
Confucius says of himself: “At 15 I set my mind on learning. At 30 I attained independence of judgment. (In China, youth ends and maturity begins at 30; before 30, one is in effect still a boy.) At 40 I was free from doubts. At 50 I knew the will of Heaven concerning myself and the world.” Until the age of 50, Confucius sought to put his teaching into practice — that is, he sought genuinely to take part in the life of the country and to serve as an official. He was first appointed steward of the granaries (an official responsible for the receipt and distribution of grain) in the Ji clan of the state of Lu (in eastern China, the present-day province of Shandong), and then to an office responsible for livestock. Having come to recognize that he could not influence state policy, Confucius retired at the age of 50 and concluded that he should simply be a teacher. “At 60 I learned to distinguish truth from falsehood; at 70 I came to follow the desires of my heart without transgressing the rites.” That is, until that time he had fulfilled his duty not from the prompting of the heart but because “it must be done”; at 70 his desires and his duty coincided.
The disciples of Confucius, on the basis of the sayings and conversations of the Master, compiled the Lunyu (“Analects” or “Conversations and Sayings”). Of the classical books, the only one that can with certainty be regarded as Confucius’s own work is the Chunqiu (“Spring and Autumn Annals,” a chronicle of the state of Lu from 722 to 481 BC); it is also highly probable that he edited the Shi Jing (“Book of Songs”).
The cult of Confucius evolved significantly after his death. During his lifetime, he was a revered but largely unsuccessful political advisor. However, during the Han dynasty, his teachings were elevated to the status of state orthodoxy. In 195 BCE, Emperor Gaozu of Han performed sacrificial rites at Confucius’s tomb in Qufu, setting a precedent for imperial veneration. Over the centuries, Confucius was gradually deified in the state cult, receiving the title of “Supreme Sage and First Teacher” (Zhisheng Xianshi). In popular folk religion, he is often venerated alongside deities of literature and civil service, reflecting his enduring status as the patron of scholars and officials.
“People most often pray to Confucius as to an ancestral spirit or the spirit of the hearth… Thus, in the homes of the Dengfeng district in Henan province, alongside the tablets bearing the names of the ancestors, the altars also display an image of Confucius — not Confucius the teacher and sage, but the ‘Great Heavenly Sage’ — a kind of absolutized old man with a white beard and a scroll of treatises in his hand. Moreover, the local inhabitants unfailingly identify this spirit precisely as Confucius. Beside him stands the figure of Shoushen — the spirit of longevity, not infrequently associated with Laozi. People turn to the ‘Great Heavenly Sage’ in difficult situations, before important transactions, or before setting out for the market,” notes A. A. Maslov [Maslov, A. A. China: Little Bells in the Dust. The Wanderings of a Magus and an Intellectual. Moscow: Aletheia, 2003, p. 107].
10.2 Is Confucianism a Religion?
The question of whether Confucianism constitutes a “religion” has long been debated in Western sinology. Early Jesuit missionaries viewed it primarily as a secular moral philosophy compatible with Christianity, while later scholars like Max Weber characterized it as an “adaptive” ethical system lacking the prophetic or salvific dimensions of Western religions.
Modern scholarship, however, tends to recognize the profound religious dimensions of Confucianism, even if it lacks a personal creator God or an institutionalized priesthood. Scholars such as Tu Weiming and Rodney Taylor argue that Confucianism is a “civil religion” or a spiritual tradition centered on self-cultivation as a path to transcendence. The ultimate goal is to align oneself with the Dao (the Way) and the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming). As Confucius stated, “If a man in the morning hears the Way, he may die in the evening without regret” (Analects 4.8).
Confucius maintained a respectful but agnostic distance from the supernatural. When asked how to serve the spirits, he replied, “While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?” (Analects 11.12). He advocated “respecting the spirits and gods but keeping them at a distance” (Analects 6.22). His skepticism was directed not at the existence of the divine, but at the superstitious manipulation of spirits. The ritual order (li) was extended from the ancestral cult to encompass all of human social interaction, sacralizing everyday ethics.
“Social ethics and politics played a very important role in the teaching of Confucius. Both, however, were intimately interwoven with a system of properly religious cults, beliefs, and rites. The mechanism of this interweaving, it is true, was highly distinctive and differed sharply from what is characteristic of many other religions. In this connection, the problem often raised by researchers — that of ‘Confucianism and religion’ — deserves attention. Is Confucianism a religion? If not, what then is it? If so, in what respects and to what extent does it differ from a religion proper? In addressing this problem, some authors unreservedly regard Confucianism as a religion and emphasize precisely its religious dimension [Aleksandrov, G. F.; Kramers, R. P.; Smith, D. H.]; others speak of this more cautiously, noting that religion in pre-Confucian China played a far from negligible role and exerted an influence upon Confucius [Dubs, H. H.; Liebethal, W.; McClatchie, T.]; still others come out sharply against regarding Confucianism as a religion [Kotlyar, D. I.; Cheng Che-yu]. In some works the question is framed more broadly. Their authors either incline to the view that, although Confucianism was not a religion in the proper sense of the word, it functioned as one [Yang Y. C.], or emphasize that Confucianism is more than a religion [Zia Z. K.]. In short, the point is that, even if this teaching may be called a religion, it differs significantly, as a system, from a number of other widely known religions [Pott, W. C.]. And nearly the chief of these differences lies in the distinctive correlation of morality and religion within Confucianism” [Vasilyev, L. S. Cults, Religions, Traditions in China. 2nd ed. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura Publishers, RAN, 2001].
One cannot, in fact, speak of the secular character of Confucianism. Confucius himself defines the highest goal as knowledge of the Dao, and this cannot be considered apart from a religious context: “if in the morning one has come to know the Dao, in the evening one may die in peace.”
A deeper acquaintance with Confucianism makes vividly clear the ritual and cultic character of most Confucian prescriptions. First, all of them express the will of Heaven and the following of the Dao; second, there are many studies that show directly the cultic character of most of these prescriptions, deriving either from the cult of the ancestors or from animistic practices. There is even a view, expressed for example by the Russian sinologist A. A. Maslov (not universally accepted, but not without foundation), that Confucius’s first formation was as a specialist in rites and rituals, and that he served as a consultant for the conduct of sacrificial rites. This, on this view, is precisely why the order characteristic of the performance of a sacrifice is later extended by Confucius to social interaction as a whole. In other words, human beings should interact with one another by the same rules that govern the interaction of the participants in sacrifices and the objects of ritual.
Toward primitive beliefs and superstitions Confucius was skeptical. To the question of his disciple Ji Lu as to how one should serve the spirits, he replied: “We do not yet know how to serve people; how then can we serve the spirits?” Confucius’s skepticism with respect to religious belief, however, was directed mainly at the sphere of superstition. In the well-known episode when Confucius fell ill and another of his disciples, Zi Lu, proposed offering a prayer to the spirits for his recovery, Confucius doubted that any benefit would come of it. The disciple replied that it was customary to address such prayers to Heaven and Earth. To this the Master said: “My prayer has been offered long since.” These last words are traditionally understood within Confucianism as an allusion to the whole of Confucius’s activity as a prayer to Heaven and Earth. Once Confucius was asked about the meaning of the sacrifice to Heaven, and he replied: “I do not know. But for one who knows, to govern the realm under Heaven would be as easy as to look upon this” — meaning his palm.
10.3 Turn Toward the Past.
From the outset, Confucius positioned himself not as an innovator, but as a transmitter of ancient wisdom. He explicitly stated: “I transmit but do not innovate. I believe in and love the ancients” (Analects 7.1). Laozi said almost the same of his own teaching. For the teaching of the Daoists, according to legend, goes back to the legendary Huang Di (the Yellow Forefather).
To preserve this heritage, Confucius is traditionally credited with editing and compiling the Five Classics (Wujing), which formed the core of the pre- Confucian and Confucian curriculum:
1. Shujing (Classic of Documents): Historical records and speeches of ancient sage-kings.
2. Shijing (Classic of Poetry): An anthology of ancient hymns, odes, and folk songs.
3. Yijing (Classic of Changes): A divinatory manual and cosmological text based on hexagrams.
4. Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals): A terse chronicle of the state of Lu, believed to contain Confucius’s subtle moral judgments on historical events.
5. Liji (Book of Rites): A compendium of ritual prescriptions, social norms, and cosmological theories.
Later, during the Song dynasty, the Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi elevated four texts to form the Four Books (Sishu), which became the primary introductory curriculum: the Analects, the Mengzi, the Daxue (Great Learning), and the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean).
Eventually, the imperial examination system was based on the Thirteen Classics (Shisan Jing), a comprehensive corpus that included the Five Classics, the Four Books (partially), the Xiaojing (Classic of Filial Piety), and authoritative commentaries. Mastery of these texts was the sole prerequisite for entering the state bureaucracy, a system that endured for nearly two millennia.
To these four were added thirteen further classics — the Xiao Jing. Knowledge of all these books is obligatory in Confucianism. Anyone who wished to become an official, to hold any post in the state, had to pass an examination. Upon promotion the examination was retaken in a more advanced form. But these books had to be known by all. And the higher the office, the more thoroughly the candidate had to know these works. The idea was that the one who knows is the one who acts. Within Confucianism this system functioned for more than two thousand years. Confucius said of himself: I study my whole life long. Hence the image, in Chinese literature, of the “eternal student.”
10.4 The Image of the Noble Man.
The central ethical ideal of Confucianism is the junzi (often translated as the “gentleman,” “noble man,” or “exemplary person”). The junzi is contrasted with the xiaoren (the “petty” or “small” man). As the Analects states: “The gentleman seeks within himself; the petty man seeks within others” (15.21), and “The gentleman is concerned with the Way; the petty man is concerned with property” (15.32).
The defining traits of the noble man may be enumerated in various orders, but the general principles are these:
Ren — “the human principle,” “love for one’s fellow human beings,” “humaneness.” This is the properly human element within the human being, which is also a duty. To follow ren is to be guided by compassion and love for others. It is what distinguishes the human being from the animal, and stands opposed to savagery, baseness, and cruelty. Its symbol is wood.
Yi — “righteousness.” Although it is no sin to follow righteousness out of one’s own interest, the righteous person follows yi because it is right. Righteousness balances humaneness and lends firmness and rigor. “The noble man seeks righteousness; the base man seeks profit,” says Confucius. Its symbol is metal.
Li — literally “rite” or “ritual.” This is the principle of adhering to rituals, customs, and traditions. In a broader sense, li is any activity directed to the preservation of tradition. The word li may also be rendered as “rules,” “ceremonies,” or “etiquette.” In its most general form, ritual encompasses the entire social life of the noble man. Li “in fact constitutes an exceedingly complex code of rules and inner experiences that help to establish the connection of the human being with Heaven. At the same time, neither Confucius nor his followers ever gave a clear definition of the concept of li. Nor was this required, for ritual was understood as mystically inexpressible — as the ‘will of Heaven’ embodied in human action. The outward side of ritual could be expressed in numerous bows, in elaborate forms of approach to the ruler or to a superior official, in modes of address to one’s elders and equals, in the norms of social intercourse” [Maslov, A. A. China: Little Bells in the Dust. The Wanderings of a Magus and an Intellectual, pp. 100–115]. Its symbol is fire.
Zhi — “prudence,” “wisdom,” “discernment.” In a broad sense, zhi is the capacity to foresee the consequences of one’s actions and to view them from outside. It balances the quality of righteousness. Righteousness, for example, may demand punishment, but wisdom may foresee evil consequences of a given punishment and so modify its character. Its symbol is water.
Xin — “uprightness,” “sincerity,” “conscientiousness,” “candor.” Xin balances the observance of ritual, guarding the noble man from hypocrisy and “Pharisaism,” for ritual can be performed formally and insincerely. Xin corresponds to the element of earth.
(Note: The later Han dynasty synthesis mapped these five virtues onto the Five Elements / Wuxing—Wood, Metal, Fire, Water, and Earth—but this cosmological mapping is not found in the teachings of Confucius himself.)
The noble man has his antithesis — the “base person” (xiaoren). Such a person is one whose actions are guided solely by considerations of personal advantage, who seeks accomplices everywhere yet respects neither them nor himself. “The noble man steadfastly endures misfortune. The base man, in misfortune, falls apart. The noble man awaits with dignity the commands of Heaven. The base man hopes for good luck. The noble man is serene in soul. The base man is always agitated.”
10.5 The Rectification of Names.
Truthfulness in names. The practice of the “rectification of names” — zhengming — is one of the central concepts of Confucian philosophy. Its exposition occupies the twenty-second chapter of the treatise Xunzi, as well as certain fragments of the Lüshi Chunqiu. “The Master said: ‘How uncultivated you are, You! The noble man maintains caution with respect to what he does not know. If names are not correct, then words have no foundation. If words have no foundation, then deeds cannot be brought to completion. If deeds cannot be brought to completion, then ritual and music do not flourish. If ritual and music do not flourish, punishments are not fittingly applied. If punishments are not fittingly applied, the people do not know how to conduct themselves. Therefore the noble man, in giving names, must pronounce them correctly, and what he pronounces he must carry out correctly. In the words of the noble man there must be nothing incorrect.’” (Ritual and music are highly important categories within Confucianism.)
Confucius speaks of something that at first appears simple: the necessity of beginning by calling things by their proper names. So long as the thief is called “a successful merchant,” everything will go on as it does, and nothing will be set right. Each thing must be matched by its true name; if people do not know the correct names, then nothing can be accomplished.
From the Confucian point of view, there are five relationships among human beings that must be rightly realized in the world, and through them the will of Heaven will be realized. These five relationships are bound together by a continuous internal logic. All of them are a reflection of the relation of Heaven to Earth — that is, of the higher to the lower. The first relationship is the most submissive, with the higher fully dominating the lower. With each successive relationship, however, this rigid vertical of subordination weakens. Thus, for example, while a son never has the right to oppose the will of his father, a subject under certain conditions does acquire the right to oppose the will of the king. And so on through the rest.
10.6 The Relation of Parents and Children, or Filial Piety.
Filial piety (xiao). This is the beginning of all things. It is the foundational category of Confucianism, the axis of Confucius’s preaching. He who cannot be a good son or a good daughter can be nothing in this life. With this, in the view of the ancient Chinese teacher, righteousness begins. Confucius offers a brief formulation of xiao: “To serve [parents] according to the rules of li, to bury them according to the rules of li, and to offer sacrifices to them according to the rules of li.”
Xiao demands absolute respect, obedience, and care for one’s parents during their lives, and the meticulous performance of ancestral rites after their deaths. The Liji (Book of Rites) prescribes strict mourning periods, including a three-year withdrawal from public life upon the death of a parent.
Mengzi (Mencius), the “Second Sage” of Confucianism, outlined five forms of unfilial behavior, ranging from physical laziness and gambling to bringing disgrace upon one’s parents through criminal behavior. The primacy of xiao is so absolute that Confucius endorsed the principle that “the father shields the son, and the son shields the father” (Analects 13.18), prioritizing family loyalty over state law. This vertical bond of devotion extends backward through the ancestors all the way to Heaven, anchoring the individual in the cosmic order.
The rules of veneration of one’s ancestors presuppose complete submission and obedience to the will of one’s parents: “By the ‘rules of li,’ one is to respect one’s parents and obey them without question, to care for father and mother throughout one’s whole life and continually to please them, to serve and honor them irrespective of how far they have deserved such honor — these are the sacred duties of a son. An exemplary and pious son must warm his parents’ bed in winter and see that it is cooled in summer. In the evening he must see to all that is required for their rest in the morning. When traveling anywhere away from home, even a grown man, himself the head of a family, is obliged to inform his parents of the purpose and duration of his journey and to secure their consent” [Vasilyev, L. S. Cults, Religions, Traditions in China. 2nd ed. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, RAN, 2001].
A son always remains a son and does not belong to himself. However high the office he holds, however weighty the affairs he conducts, upon the death of his father or mother he is obliged to retire and to observe mourning for three years. The rules of this mourning are clearly prescribed; and if it became known that someone had tried to conceal the death of his parents in order to retain his post, this was punished in the strictest manner.
Like Confucius, his disciple Mengzi (Meng Ke, Meng Ziyu, ca. 372–289 BC — an ancient Chinese philosopher and, after Confucius, the second great teacher of early Confucianism) unreservedly proclaims the veneration of parents. There are five forms of impiety: 1) when, being too slothful to work, one fails to provide for one’s parents; 2) when, given over to gambling and drunkenness, one fails to provide for one’s parents; 3) when, in one’s passion for money and wealth and out of love concentrated on wife and children, one fails to provide for one’s parents; 4) when, given over to the lusts of the ears and eyes, one disgraces one’s parents; 5) when one has a passion for bravado, brawling, and mischief, and thereby places one’s parents in danger.
In his own household, even a grown son had no right to make decisions without consulting his father. Until the death of his parents, a person’s life belongs to them. While they are alive, declares one of the precepts of the Li Ji, he has no right to swear to a friend that he will die together with him or for him. From the Han era onward, the cult of filial piety received official support and was put into practice.
Why is filial piety so important for Confucius? Because the son is bound to his father, the father to his own father, and so this chain ascends to the Highest Di — the Forefather, that same Divine Forefather from whom all things have come. This bond stretches back into the eternal past, rising up to Heaven; and if it is severed, the person thereby tears himself away from Heaven. Of course, someone at some point may already have broken this chain; but one may attach oneself to one’s grandfather if the father was a bad man — the essential thing is that the person himself observe this piety. It is precisely for this reason that, in Confucianism, this is the primary rule.
For example, it was forbidden to give testimony in court against one’s own parents, and the court would not accept such testimony. Even if a father beats his son, he cannot be opposed; one may only admonish him. The Lunyu records the following exchange: one of the aristocrats asked Confucius whether one should regard as an example of honesty and uprightness the case in which a man had stolen a ram and his son bore witness against him. To this Confucius replied that in his own parts uprightness and honesty are seen in the fact “that the father shields the son, and the son shields the father.”
All families performed regular sacrifices to the ancestors, seeking their favor. A noteworthy feature of such a sacrifice was a regular accounting of one’s own conduct and of the deeds one had performed.
By joining the cult of the ancestors to filial piety, Confucius recreates the ideal of the family that had already existed under the Zhou. All sons and their wives were obliged to live in the parental house and to contribute to its prosperity. Hence it was always characteristic of a more or less prosperous Chinese household to have several generations living together under one roof — sons with their wives, grandsons (often themselves already married), and great-grandsons of the head of the house. The servants belonging to the head of the family or to his sons were also not infrequently reckoned as members of the household.
When a couple was about to marry (most often the parents’ decision), the names, dates of birth, zodiac signs, and so forth were recorded and brought to the ancestral temple, where a divination was performed. Its purpose was to determine whether this bride was acceptable in the eyes of the ancestral spirits, and to secure their favor, since the wife enters the clan of her husband. All expenses were borne by the parents of the bridegroom, and these expenses were considerable; it could happen that after the wedding the parents, and sometimes even the son himself, would be paying off the debt for a long time. Gifts were given to the bride’s family and to the bride herself; during the wedding, beggars were gathered together and given alms. The marriage was considered definitively concluded not even after the ritual, the wedding night, and the introduction to the groom’s mother, but only after the groom had led the bride into the clan temple to be “introduced” to the ancestors. Until that moment the wife could still be returned.
10.7 The Relations of Sovereign and Subjects. The Son of Heaven.
Just as Heaven imprints itself upon the Earth, and as the father imprints himself upon his family, so the emperor imprints himself upon his subjects. All of this is patterned upon the relation of Heaven to Earth. The emperor is the Son of Heaven; he receives from above the Mandate of Heaven.
The ruler — wang — was regarded as the one who joins Heaven and the people. He was the high priest and was to perform the highest rites devoted to Heaven. Subordinate to him were not only his earthly subjects, but many spirits as well, since he is the Son of Heaven and stands in the spiritual hierarchy directly beneath Heaven. Hence one may encounter imperial decrees addressed to the spirits of particular lands.
To the questions of local kings as to what de a person must possess in order to become a fully legitimate emperor, the zealous follower of Confucius, Mengzi, replies that the essential thing is to be able to love and to protect the people: “Such a king no one is able to resist.” Each emperor is the Son of Heaven and receives “from above” the heavenly mandate to rule. In other words, the ruler is the adopted son of Heaven. If, however, the king is morally out of accord with the will of Heaven, he loses the Mandate of Heaven and ceases to be the Son of Heaven.
The Master particularly emphasized the chastising role of Heaven, and along with it the role of the dignitaries who served under the emperor: “When a sovereign has serious shortcomings, such ministers should admonish him, and if he does not heed their counsel and repeated admonitions, then they should replace him with another.” The ruler must play, with respect to his subjects, the role of the father of a family, regarding the state as his household and resorting to coercion only in extreme cases.
In medieval China there was a distinctive institution of Confucian censors, appointed from among the officials and exercising a kind of prosecutorial oversight. Their primary task was to see strictly to it that everything in the country was conducted in accordance with Heaven. At the slightest deviation from the norms, the censor was obliged to point out to the ruler his errors. This right was considered sacred, and from the Tang era (seventh through ninth centuries) onward, many censors discharged it not out of fear but out of conscience — even when such a report threatened its bold author with death. An official who had penned a sharply denunciatory memorial calmly prepared for death and was not infrequently executed.
“As a rule, he met death with head held high, in the consciousness of duty fulfilled. For duty — that is, the sacred Confucian principles on which the whole of Chinese culture had rested over centuries and millennia — was dearer to him than anything else, even than life itself. It is understandable that those around him, as a rule, set a high value upon such an act by a disgraced official. The chronicles describe in detail and with sympathy many such cases of social heroism. The protests of the officialdom usually carried no small public weight and, despite the executions that followed for the most ‘unruly,’ not infrequently compelled the sovereign to reconsider his decisions and to alter his policy. The chief impulse moving the sovereign in this, however, was not so much fear of an ‘officials’ revolt’ as apprehension of more serious social upheavals. The point is that, according to those same sacred Confucian traditions, in cases where persistent admonitions did not avail, orthodox Confucians considered themselves entitled to appeal to the masses. Here we come to one of the most original and interesting points of Confucianism — the sanctioning of the people’s right to ‘revolution,’ to revolt against a non- virtuous ruler. This important thesis was first advanced by Mengzi,” concludes Vasilyev [Vasilyev, L. S. Cults, Religions, Traditions in China. 2nd ed. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, RAN, 2001].
In conversation with the ruler of one of the Chinese kingdoms, Mengzi declared that a true wang cannot be overthrown, still less killed. When his astonished interlocutor began to adduce historical counterexamples, Mengzi explained that none of the figures he named was a true king. A non-virtuous ruler, in Mengzi’s view, cannot be considered a ruler at all. And to the question of the killing of such rulers, he replied that this was not the killing of a ruler, but only the destruction of an evildoer and villain.
This, however, cannot be called revolution in the strict sense of the word, for revolution presupposes a turn to the new, whereas Confucianism spoke of a turn back, of the restoration of ancient piety. A new dynasty was to restore the old order.
10.8 The Relations of Husband and Wife.
All relations were constructed on the principle of the subordination of the earth to Heaven, and the relation of wife to husband is no exception. While, however, that of ruler and subjects is no longer one of absolute subordination — and presupposes the deposition of the king in the event of his sinful conduct — the relation of husband and wife represents a further step in this same direction. On the one hand, the prototype of the husband is still Heaven, and of the wife, Earth, with rigid and strict subordination between them; on the other, in this case the wife-earth enjoys greater freedoms, especially after she becomes a mother.
When husband and wife are spoken of, Confucianism emphasizes the distinction between man and woman, not their commingling. The point is stressed that each occupies his or her own place and discharges his or her own duties, and that the duties of the woman are those of service.
As soon as a girl reached marriageable age, her parents began to occupy themselves with arranging her marriage. Marriage was considered the chief purpose of a Chinese woman’s life. After marriage, she left her father’s house forever and entered into the position of wife-servant in her husband’s house. She entered her husband’s family: her father-in-law became her father, her mother-in-law her mother. The rules required the married woman to love her parents-in-law more strongly than her own parents. In the event of the mother- in-law’s death, she was obliged to grieve more deeply and to wear mourning longer.
Having entered her husband’s house, the wife found herself in service to the mother-in-law, who presided over the women’s quarters. The ritual rules of conduct required her to endure beatings and abuse from the mother-in-law, should there be such. If, however, she could not endure this and entered into open conflict with her, the husband was obliged to take his mother’s side and to call his wife to obedience. The wife’s standing rose sharply with the birth of a child, and especially if she bore a son.
The rules governing the ancestral cult and the family placed husband and wife in an unequal position from the outset. The wife serves as a means for the prosperity of the family and the continuation of the lineage, but the bearer of the lineage line remains, in any case, the man. The man was not bound to monogamy, whereas the woman was.
10.9 Elders and Juniors.
In China it was customary, above all, to be concerned for the birth of a son. Already in the songs of the Shi Jing it is noted that a newborn boy was laid upon a mat and toys were placed in his hands, while a girl was laid in a corner of the house upon rags and played with shards of clay pots. The birth of a son was always a great celebration in the family. It was marked in the household by particularly abundant sacrifices in honor of the ancestors, of the spirit of the domestic hearth, and of all the local gods and spirits.
Boys and girls were brought up together in early childhood, in the women’s quarters. Then, following the ancient rules of the Li Ji, they were separated: “At seven, a boy and a girl no longer ate together or sat on the same mat.” A girl, from the age of seven or eight, began to be prepared for marriage and instructed in the rules of conduct and of obedience to her husband and her elders. A boy, by contrast, the family usually sought to send to school.
The relations of son to father, of subject to ruler, and of wife to husband are, in general, clear: they are relations of subordination and dependence, of obedience and submission. Somewhat different in character were the relations of the fourth category — between the younger and the elder within the family, and, in a more extended sense, between those younger in age, rank, or position and those who are their elders in society.
This group of relations was bound up neither with unquestioning obedience nor with the obligatory subjection of the younger to the elder. Yet they too laid upon the younger many obligations and respectful ceremonies. The Li Ji has much to say of the conveniences and care with which the elders, and especially the aged, were to be surrounded.
“What is meant is not merely elementary ethics — yielding one’s seat or the road to an old man, dismounting from one’s chariot upon meeting one of higher rank, or making a deep bow before one’s teacher (this last was obligatory even for the emperor himself). The chain of obligatory ceremonies bound the younger far more tightly. Thus, for example, to any question put by an elder, the younger had to reply with a humble bow and a profession of his own incompetence to judge of the matter. The rules of the Li Ji provided that the younger should not sit on the same mat with the elder; that in the elder’s presence he should neither shout nor point with his finger, neither let his attention wander in another direction nor even look his interlocutor in the face. At table, the younger should not put a morsel in his mouth or take a swallow of drink before the elder did so. When called by the elder, he was obliged not merely to reply, but to rise and respectfully approach him. The younger does not dare even to correct the elder in cases where the latter has displayed ignorance or incompetence in his judgment,” concludes Vasilyev [Vasilyev, L. S. Cults, Religions, Traditions in China. 2nd ed. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, RAN, 2001].
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Kong, Demao; Ke, Lan; Roberts, Rosemary. The house of Confucius (Translated ed.). London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1988
Oldstone-Moore, Jennifer, ed. the Oxford Handbook of Confucianism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2023
Oldstone-Moore, Jennifer. Understanding Confucianism: Origins, Beliefs, Practices, Holy Texts, Sacred Places. London, England: Duncan Baird. 2003
Rainey, Lee Dian. Confucius & Confucianism: The essentials. Oxford: Wiley- Blackwell. 2010
Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual (4th ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center. 2015
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- 10.4-10.6
- 10.7-10.9