Filial piety comes first.
In Chinese history, the idea of providing for the elderly with filial piety and parents as the core has always been an important part of the spiritual culture of Chinese, and it is also the most basic moral and ethical concept in traditional Chinese society.
01 Pre-Qin period: The Filial Piety Temple was founded
From the legendary Yu Shun period, filial piety has formed an indissoluble relationship with Shun's adoptive parents. When Shun was young, his father, Stepmother, and half-brother Xiang xiang had repeatedly tried to kill him, but Shun, after escaping, still had great respect for his parents and was very kind to his brother. After accepting Yao's Zen concession and ascending to the throne, he was still respectful when he went to visit his father, and he also made his younger brother Xiang a prince. His filial piety touched the heavens and moved the earth, and also made him the first of the twenty-four filial pieties in ancient times.
Filial piety touched the heavens
During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the idea of filial piety gradually matured. According to the Book of Rites, no matter how busy the political affairs were, King Wen of Zhou had to ask his parents to say hello every morning, noon and night, and the three meals a day were also personally given to his parents, and he was extremely concerned about their eating preferences and eating conditions. King Wen's son King Wu did the same with his father, and king Wen was ill and unwell, so King Wu worried about it all day long, and waited day and night, taking good care of him. King Wen was so ill that if he ate only one meal a day, then King Wu would eat only one meal; if King Wen ate two meals a day, King Wu would also eat two meals.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the systematic concept of filial piety has been formed. Confucius turned filial piety into the aristocratic behavior of filial piety from the patriarchal society to the conscious action of everyone from the monarch to the people, pointing out that "the parents are there, not far away, the tour must be good", and the children should accompany the parents as much as possible; emphasizing that "the tree wants to be quiet and the wind is not stopping, the son wants to raise and the relatives do not wait", and it is necessary to take advantage of the fact that the parents are alive and do not practice filial piety in time, rather than waiting for the day when the parents die to regret it. Confucius developed filial piety into a "good parent" that everyone can do, and combined it with "etiquette", enriching and developing the connotation of filial piety with humanistic feelings and ethical spirit. Since then, the maintenance of parents has become the responsibility of children and has been strongly promoted.
02 Han and Tang Dynasties: Establish a state based on filial piety
After the admiration of the monarchs of the Han and Tang dynasties, the idea of filial piety to parents was incorporated into the national moral system of feudal society, became one of the ideological sources of feudal patriarchal autocracy, and penetrated into all aspects of social and political life of the Han and Tang dynasties.
In the two Han Dynasties, "ruling the world with filial piety" became the country's governance policy and ruling ideology, and also became the core spirit and ideological foundation of society. The Han Dynasty made filial piety the main way for the government to select officials, and the selection criteria were to see if you could filial piety to your parents. Under the influence of the ideological concept of home-state isomorphism, the Han Dynasty people believed that the loyalty of the state must come from filial piety, that is, if a person is a filial piety at home, then he must be a loyal subject for the country, so he should "seek loyalty to the door of filial piety."
During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the idea of filial piety to parents began to move towards alienation, but in order to make the people obey the rule, the rulers still regarded good parents as the basic content of filial piety and vigorously promoted it. If an official's unfilial behavior toward his parents is exposed, he or she may be dismissed or killed. Those who verbally disrespect their adoptive parents will not let go. For example, at the age of four, Kong Rong, who can make pears, once published the famous "parental unkind theory" in order to oppose "foolish filial piety": "What kind of relatives should the father be to the son?" In its original meaning, it is actually the ear of lust. The son is to the mother, and the son is also reverent? For example, in the middle of the hermitage, out is out of the way. This means that there is no grace between father and son, but it is a momentary passion that leads to the relationship between father and son; the relationship between mother and son is just like putting something in a bottle, and after the thing is poured out, the two have no relationship. Cao Cao was not a loyal and filial man, but he still used this as an excuse to execute Kong Rong.
Hole melting
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the economy and society were prosperous and stable, the people's lives were relatively rich, and the rulers continued to emphasize the social indoctrination function of the concept of filial piety, and the idea of filial piety was further developed. The emperor of the Tang Dynasty had repeatedly ordered the promotion of filial piety throughout the country, and Li Longji, the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, personally annotated the Book of Filial Piety twice in the tenth year of the new century and the second year of Tianbao, and then promulgated his "Commentary on the Book of Filial Piety" to tianxia and Guozixue, and taught it to the people and students as a teaching material. Almost all emperors of the Tang Dynasty had a filial piety in their titles. In the imperial examination of the Tang Dynasty, the "Filial Piety Classic" was also a compulsory subject and was highly valued.
03 Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties: Towards extremism and ignorance
During the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, in order to meet the needs of the centralized monarchical rule, the rulers closely linked filial piety with loyalty, and while promoting loyalty, they also attached great importance to the promotion and indoctrination of filial piety, and regarded all violations of filial piety as unfaithful. With the continuous development and deepening of Song Ming's theory, the original connotation of traditional filial piety thinking has also been seriously alienated, and theologians have emphasized the absolute correctness of parents to their children and the unprincipled obedience of children to their parents, and put forward extreme slogans such as "all parents in the world" and "fathers want sons to die, and sons have to die". During the Yuan Dynasty, the "Twenty-Four Filial Pieties" was written and widely circulated in the society, which made the traditional filial piety idea develop to the extreme. It can be seen that with the increasing strengthening of the centralized power of feudal absolutism, the ancient idea of old-age care has become more and more extreme, and even ignorant.
It is worth noting that during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the idea of social pension became increasingly prosperous, which constituted a powerful supplement to the traditional family pension idea with filial piety and parents as the core, and also became a fresh blood in the development process of ancient pension ideas in the mainland.
Today, home care is still a very important pension model in the mainland. The "Medium- and Long-term Plan for the State to Actively Respond to Population Aging" and the "Opinions on Strengthening the Work on Aging in the New Era" issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council both regard "home-based old-age care" as an important part of the mainland old-age service system in the new era. In the process of home care, the ideological concept of advocating children's filial piety to parents has a very positive significance, which can effectively enhance the function of family pension. The "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Aging Cause and the Old-age Service System" just issued by the State Council in February 2022 also consolidates and enhances the family's old-age care function and inherits and carries forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation of "hundred good and filial piety first" as an important task in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Under the situation that the aging of the population has become a basic national condition of the mainland and the issue of old-age care has been increasingly highly concerned by the state, the essence of the traditional old-age thinking with filial piety to parents as the core will also be rejuvenated under the conditions of the new era.