The Ideal Confucian Mode for 'Mother-in-law Being loving and Daughter-in-law Being Filial Pious' in Traditional China

摘要

The traditional Chinese family relations are governed by Confucian ethics that daughters must pay filial piety to the eldership. On the one hand, when a daughter got married, she became wife and must show respect to her parents-in-law, but on the other hand, "mother-in-law being loving" requires a mother-in-law to love her daughter-in-law. In this way, both a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law will be happy. However, with the changes of traditional society, "mother-in-law being loving" wanes and "mother-in-law being powerful" waxes. "Daughter-in-law being filial pious" has been emphasized more and more by social rules, which made "mother-in-law being kind and daughter-in-law being filial pious" ideal. In China the traditional orthodoxy that family and the state shares the same structure has brought countless ties between family structure and state order. Social stability and national prosperity can be achieved only when family harmony is ensured. Thus, the intellectuals try to build a perfect state for the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The traditional Chinese family relations are governed by Confucian ethics that daughters must pay filial piety to the eldership. On the one hand, when a daughter got married, she became wife and must show respect to her parents-in-law, but on the other hand, "mother-in-law being kind" requires a mother-in-law to love her daughter-in-law, as Guanzi says: "kindness is parents' lofty conduct," "filial piety is a daughter-in-law's lofty conduct," "a daughter-in-law will be filial pious if parents are loving without slackness," and "a daughter-in-law will be given good reputation if she is filial pious without slackness."[1] In one word, a mother-in-law should be kind, and a daughter-in-law should obey the rule of filial piety, but factually mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are not as equal as the Confucian mode requires though.