When it comes to the Spring Festival of another year, urging marriage and promoting it has become a short parent who cannot be avoided. However, do you know that many young people have a headache when they hear it, "no filial piety, no posterity is greater", in fact, it has been "misinterpreted" for many years? Didn't Mencius, who said this, want to urge young people to start a family and have children earlier?
First, there are three filial pieties, and no queen is greater?
From the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Mencius's saying that "no filial piety has three, no queen is greater" has been raised between various families from the father to the younger generation. At that time, people's understanding of this sentence was similar to today's, that is, "There are three things for those who are not filial to those who are not filial to each other... Not marrying and childless, no ancestors, three filial pieties, of the three, no queen is greater."
At present, the earliest person who can be examined to explain "no filial piety has three, and no posterity is great" is the scribe Zhao Qi at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. In his view, from the perspective of etiquette, there are three aspects of filial piety for children and grandchildren: Ayi Qu Cong, trapping relatives and unrighteousness; poor and elderly, not for Lu Shi; not marrying childless, and never having ancestors.
Zhao Qi's Mencius Chapters and Verses is the earliest surviving annotated copy of Mencius. Therefore, Zhao Qi's interpretation of the phrase "no filial piety has three, and no queen is greater" has been regarded as the most correct understanding for thousands of years. Even today, this interpretation made by Zhao Qi nearly two thousand years ago is still applied unmodified.
Although more and more young people have more diverse views on the matter of having offspring, parents often start family talks during the Spring Festival with "don't go away". And this contradiction is not because today's young people are too "disobedient", but because Zhao Qi's interpretation is very different from Mencius's original intention.
Second, there are three filial pieties, and no queen is greater!
In the Mencius Chapters and Sentences of Leaving Lou, Mencius said: "There are three filial pieties, and no queen is greater." Shun married without telling him, for the sake of no queen. The gentleman thinks that Judas is also telling. And not far below this sentence, Mencius personally summed up the "Five Unfilial Ones." Combining these Mencius' own views, it is not difficult for us to find that Zhao Qi's explanation is very out of context.
First, in Mencius's original words, "no queen is great" uses "after" instead of "after". Although in modern simplified characters these two words are uniformly written as "hou", and in ancient times both words have the meaning of "descendants". However, if, as Zhao Qi generally understood this "no queen" as "childless", it would contradict Mencius's later text.
Mencius explained it with Shun's example after "no filial piety has three, no queen is greater": Shun's marriage without telling his parents is "no queen". Therefore, according to Shun's example, Mencius's statement that "no filial piety has three, and no queen is greater" should be emphasizing another ancient Chinese ritual - marrying a wife must tell the parents.
In Mencius, in addition to proving that "no filial piety has three, no queen is greater" uses the example of Shun's wife, in Mencius Wanzhang, Mencius once again moved out of the ancient sage Shun as an example. And the relevant fragment of Mencius's Ten Thousand Chapters is that "if you marry a wife, you must tell your parents."
You may wonder, in ancient times, was "marrying a wife without telling your parents" really more important than not having a male heir? The Book of Verses, Mencius, and the Book of Rites will all tell you that "marrying a wife without telling your parents" is indeed more important. And to this day, compared with "no filial piety has three, no queen is greater", "the order of parents, the words of the matchmaker" we are not unfamiliar with these words.
And further analysis, "later" in Mencius's time also refers to the honorable chief. If it is understood in this way, "no filial piety has three, and no queen is greater" can be expanded from a small family to a country. At first glance, Shun looked disrespectful at home. As a citizen, the greatest filial piety can be extended to disregard etiquette, law, and disrespect for the elderly, and then do things that infringe on and betray the interests of the state.
Therefore, the understanding of Mencius's original sentence "no filial piety has three, and no queen is greater" is obviously more in line with the logic of Mencius than Zhao Qi's out-of-context understanding that "no queen" means that there is no male heir, and the understanding of "no queen" as "marrying a wife without telling her parents" and having no respect for the elder is obviously more in line with the logic of Mencius.
III. Other Contradictions in Zhao Qizhi's Statement
And Zhao Qi's understanding of "no filial piety has three, and no queen is greater" not only ignores the example of Shun given by Mencius, but also has another major contradiction - making up three aspects of filial piety.
In the original text of Mencius, Mencius himself put forward the "five unfilial people": "Lazy of its four branches, regardless of the support of parents, one is not filial piety; the game is good drinking, regardless of the parents' support, the second is not filial piety; good goods, private wives, regardless of the parents' support, three filial piety; from the desire of the eyes and ears, think that the parents kill, the four are not filial piety; good courage is very good, to endanger the parents, the five filial piety." ”
Comparing the "three unfilial pieties" mentioned by Zhao Qi, we will find that Zhao Qi almost made up a set of statements by himself. Not only is the "no filial piety" he proposed far from what Mencius called "no filial piety", but Zhao Qi's "three unfilial pieties" itself also has many problems.
First of all, "Ayi Qu obeys, traps relatives and unrighteousness" means to obey parents, whether parents or children have done wrong things, they are counted as filial piety. So this not only makes people wonder, since they must unconditionally obey their parents, why do parents have to "carry the pot" when they make their own decisions?
Secondly, if the saying that "the family is poor and pro-old, not for Lu Shi", if it is interpreted in connection, it means that if the reader's family is poor but cannot be an official who makes a lot of money, it is not filial piety. Leaving aside the other problems of this, let's just say, then there is no question of filial piety or filial piety for those who do not read?
If this sentence is understood separately, the first half of the sentence becomes that people who are poor are not filial piety, and the second half of the sentence becomes that if a reader does not become an official or an official cannot get a high salary, it is not filial piety. In this way, let alone ordinary people, it is Confucius's proud protégé Lu, Yan Hui, and even Confucius's son Boyu are filial piety.
Third, "not marrying and childless, absolute ancestors" believes that no male heir is filial piety. Then looking back at history, Huo Fu, who sealed the wolf Juxu, was not filial piety; Emperor Xuan of Han, who founded Zhaoxuan Zhongxing, was not filial piety; Han Yu, who "fell from the eight generations of Wenqi", was not filial piety; Lin Hejing, who pioneered the tradition of writing mei by literati, was not filial piety... According to Zhao Qi, isn't China's history quickly created by a group of "unfilial sons"?
And since Zhao Qi, how many people have used the excuse of "no filial piety has three, no queen is greater" to regard women as grass mustard, so that "three wives and four concubines" become a kind of "glory"? We can't tell. It's like we've been able to listen to our parents' nagging for years that "no filial piety has three, no posterity is greater" and have nowhere to dismiss the boredom it brings. And if we really want to make our lives no longer have such shackles and troubles, changing our concepts of men and women and fertility may be the most effective way.