During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, under the deliberate promotion of the imperial court, the status of filial piety reached an unprecedented height.
Along with these changes, the exegesis of the scriptures also changed. In terms of understanding the Spring and Autumn Period, the Han Confucian theory of "the father must be the best for the mother" is no longer the mainstream, but the view of "the mother and the child are the closest relatives is no rule".
When Du Yu, a great scholar in the Western Jin Dynasty, commented on "Zuo Zhuan", he opposed the ideas of Han Confucianism and believed that children should not sever ties with their mothers under any circumstances. Du Yu believes that the relationship between mother and child is above the relationship between husband and wife, so what Chunqiu said "never be a relative" means that because Qi State and Wen Jiang were having an affair, Duke Zhuang of Lu should sever his relationship with Qi State's foreign relatives; rather than saying , to sever the mother-son relationship between Wen Jiang and Lu Zhuang Gong.
Of course, the reasons for this change are obvious to Greek scholars: the core of this set of discussions is, firstly, the emphasis on the higher status of filial piety, and secondly, the emphasis on blood relationship as the top priority.
Why is filial piety particularly emphasized? Because the legitimacy of other parts of the regime at that time was too weak, we could only focus on this.
Why the emphasis on blood relatives? Because all the other identities of the country have been tortured to the point of collapse, and this is the only one left.
People don't stick to one relationship if there are other options. It can be clearly seen that since the Spring and Autumn Period, society has promoted far more than one value, and many virtues are higher than filial piety.
Relationships and morality based on blood are the most basic, but also the most backward. Today’s Greek scholars themselves feel that the political level of Greek city-states in the classical era was not high, but even the Greeks at that time were Know how to break up the blood clans in the city-state and establish a more effective organization. Therefore, this situation is indeed a setback.
The reason why Han Confucianism attaches great importance to patrilineal families is because this relationship is more extensible. The emphasis on father is actually to emphasize the country and organization. In fact, the Central Plains people themselves should also know this kind of thing.
There was a famous example in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. The powerful minister Sima Zhao held a meeting with everyone to discuss the matricide case that occurred at that time. The famous scholar Ruan Ji lamented that it was understandable to kill his father, but it was too much to kill his mother.
Others were very surprised. Sima Zhao asked him to explain. Ruan Ji said that animals only recognize their mothers and not their fathers, so killing their father is an act of an animal; killing their mother is an act worse than an animal, so he believed that killing his mother was an act of an animal. more serious. Sima Zhao and others also thought it made sense.
This incident can be seen as a typical example of people's thinking at that time. Du Yu's annotations were also influenced by this trend and refined it to a theoretical level.
But this is obviously not a good thing.
According to Jin people's own understanding, they can all find problems. They all know that only recognizing their mother but not their father is the behavior of an animal; over-exalting the mother's status means that they have begun to slip towards the direction of an animal.
This is certainly better than being worse than an animal, but the benefits are limited. If they are those primitive and ignorant barbarians, it would be easier to understand. But for the Seris civilization, which has had glorious achievements, this is obviously a setback.
After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the influence of this retrogression did not disappear, but further expanded and had an impact on written laws.
The jurists of ancient Seris also avoided the topic of killing one's mother to avenge one's father.
It can be seen from two typical cases in the Han Dynasty that although Kong Jiyan gave a systematic explanation, the results of the explanation aroused greater controversy, and it would be better not to explain. The political sensitivity of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was much higher than that of him. He directly avoided the most difficult part of the topic, discussed the matter as it happened, and quickly solved the problem with a method that was satisfactory to all parties. Therefore, the legal codes and books of later generations generally regard the precedents of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty as the standard.
But in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, some people discovered other loopholes, which was the problem of reporting.
According to the laws at the time, if parents committed a crime, their children should not report it. For example, if a father kills his mother, if his children report it, the father will undoubtedly die, which is equivalent to indirectly killing the father. This conflicts with filial piety and therefore needs to be banned. The same is true if the mother kills the father.
This regulation is also full of contradictions from beginning to end.
First of all, what should we do when there is a conflict between family and country? Who should we listen to? Whether parents should report their crimes or not, to put it bluntly, this is the reason.
If you report someone, it will be detrimental to your parents and unfilial; but if you don't report it, you will allow others to break the law. Behind the law is the overall interest of the court and the authority of the emperor. Failure to report it would be disloyal and disrespectful, which is also a big problem.
The reason is of course not difficult to understand.
Guo Kang still remembered that one time, Shi Huizhen complained to Theodora about why the elders of the family had so much power. Theodora thought that Guo Kang knew these issues best, so she asked her to ask Guo Kang.
Guo Kang thought about it at the time and told her that this was because all countries in the world, including Seris and Rome, still had strong feudal relics and could only be regarded as "semi-bureaucratic countries."
Although bureaucracy has been basically implemented within the government, even the most powerful and powerful political power can only extend the bureaucracy to the township level. Going further, it was beyond the court's ability and could only recognize the local de facto enfeoffment system.
Therefore, although it is called a bureaucratic empire, everyone is the same as the Han Dynasty, with "prefectures and states running in parallel". And this situation will be difficult to change in the future - at least in the era known to Guo Kang, the countries with the strongest management capabilities can only manage neighborhoods and villages. At the family level, at best it is called autonomy, at worst it is still recognition of enfeoffment.
The leader of the family is actually the "vassal" of the country. His various powers also come from this.
Why does Shi Huizhen's family have jurisdiction over her? Because she is a vassal of a vassal. This is also the reason why it is not easy for the state to directly intervene in the management of family affairs.
For the government, it is natural to hope that the more control the better. But in fact, due to various constraints, this ideal situation is almost impossible to achieve.
To take the simplest example, if the family is completely bureaucratized, then parents should be like officials and must pass exams before they can hold positions and have children; if their character and ability are too poor, they will not be able to fulfill their parents' responsibilities in the family. If they are responsible, the government should step forward to remove them and call on other people to manage them.
Many future science fiction works will not be so exaggerated...
Since this kind of "feudal" families and families have existed for a long time, of course various institutions relying on these organizations will also exist, such as business institutions inherited from the family, etc. Therefore, it is not surprising that although they are in "modern society", they are full of medieval elements such as hereditary, arbitrary, and guild monopoly.
After all, we are not that far away from the Middle Ages, let alone the people who lived in that era.
(End of chapter)
