In the Wei and Jin dynasties, under the deliberate admiration of the imperial court, the status of filial piety reached an unprecedented height.

Along with these changes, the commentary on the classics also changed. In terms of understanding the Spring and Autumn Period, the Han Confucian theory of "being a father and a mother" is no longer the mainstream, but adopts the view that "there is no end to the relationship between mother and child".

When the Western Jin Dynasty Great Confucian Du pre-annotated the "Zuo Chuan", he opposed the Han Confucianism's proposition, believing that children could not sever their relationship with their mothers under any circumstances. Du Pre believes that the relationship between mother and son overrides the relationship between husband and wife, so what Spring and Autumn said about "never being a relative" means that because the Qi people and Wen Jiang are promiscuous, Lu Zhuanggong should sever the relationship with Qi relatives; Instead of saying that the mother-son relationship between Wen Jiang and Lu Zhuanggong should be severed.

Of course, the reasons for this change could not be more obvious in the eyes of Greek scholars: at the heart of this set of discourses is the emphasis on the higher status of filial piety and the prioritization of kinship.

Why is filial piety particularly emphasized? Because the legitimacy of the regime at that time was too weak in other places, it could only grasp this.

Why is there an emphasis on blood kinship? Because the rest of the country's identity is about to collapse, this is the only thing left.

If there are other options, then people don't just get stuck with one relationship. It can be clearly seen that from the Spring and Autumn period onwards, there was far more than one value admired by society, and many virtues were above filial piety.

Blood relations and morality are the most basic ones, but they are also the most backward ones - Greek scholars today feel that the political level of the Greek city-states in the classical era is not high, but even the Greeks at that time knew that they had to break the blood clans within the city-states and establish more effective organizations. So, this situation is indeed a kind of regression.

The reason why Han Ru attaches importance to patrilineal families is because this relationship is more expansive. The emphasis on the father is actually for the sake of emphasizing the state and the organization. This kind of thing, in fact, the people of the Central Plains themselves should also know.

During the Wei and Jin dynasties, there is a famous example. The powerful minister Sima Zhao held a meeting with everyone to discuss the case of mother murder that occurred at that time. Ruan Ji, a celebrity, said with emotion that it is understandable to kill his father, but it is too much to kill his mother.

The others were very surprised, Sima Zhao asked him to explain, Ruan Ji said that the beast only recognized the mother and not the father, so killing the father was the behavior of the beast; Killing a mother is an act that is inferior to an animal, so he believes that killing a mother is more serious. Sima Zhao and others also felt that it made sense.

This incident can be seen as a typical example of people's thinking at that time. For example, Du Pre's commentary was also influenced by this trend, and then refined it to the height of theory.

But this is clearly not a good thing.

According to the Jin people's own understanding, they can find the problems. They themselves know that it is the behavior of beasts to recognize only the mother and not the father; Exalting the mother's status too much means that she has begun to slide in the direction of the beast.

This is certainly a little better than the beast, but the good is limited. If it's that kind of primitive and ignorant barbarian, it's easy to understand. But for the Seris civilization, which has had a glorious history, this is obviously a step backwards.

After the Wei and Jin dynasties, the impact of this regression did not disappear, but further expanded, and had an impact on written law.

The jurists of the ancient Seris were equally evasive about the topic of killing their mother to avenge their father.

It can be seen from the two typical cases of the Han Dynasty that although Kong Jiyan made a systematic explanation, the result of the interpretation caused more controversy, and it is better not to explain. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was much more politically sensitive than him, and directly avoided the most difficult part of the topic, and quickly resolved the problem by means that were satisfactory to all parties. Therefore, the legal codes and books of later generations generally regarded the precedents of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty as the standard.

But by the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, someone found other loopholes, that is, the problem of reporting.

According to the law at the time, if a parent commits a crime, the child should not report it. For example, if the father kills the mother, if the children report it, the father will definitely die, which is equivalent to indirectly killing the father. This is in conflict with filial piety, so it needs to be banned. It's the same if the mother kills the father.

This regulation, too, is full of contradictions from beginning to end.

First of all, what to do when there is a conflict between the family and the state, and who to listen to? Whether parents report crimes or not, to put it bluntly, is the reason.

If it is reported, it is unfavorable to the parents and unfilial piety; But not reporting is to connive at others to undermine the law, and behind the law is the overall interest of the imperial court and the authority of the emperor. If you don't report it, it is disloyal and disrespectful, and it is also a big problem.

Of course, the reason for this is not difficult to understand.

Guo Kang still remembers that once, Shi Huizhen complained to Theodora about why the elders of the family had so much power. Theodora thought that Guo Kang knew these questions best, so she asked Guo Kang to ask.

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 legacy, and could only be regarded as a "semi-bureaucratic state".

Although the bureaucratic system has been basically realized within the government, even the most powerful and powerful government can only extend the bureaucratic system to the village level. Further down, it was beyond the ability of the imperial court to recognize the local de facto feudal system.

Therefore, although it is called a bureaucratic empire, everyone is the same as the Han Dynasty, which is "parallel to the county and state". And this situation is difficult to change in the future - at least until Guo Kang's known era, the country with the strongest management ability is at most to manage neighborhoods and villages. At the family level, it is called autonomy if it sounds good, but it is still recognized as feudal.

And the leader of the family is actually the "vassal" in 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 vassals. It is not good for the state to directly intervene in the management of the affairs within the family, and the reason is the same.

For the government, it is natural to hope that the more it manages, the better. But in reality, due to various constraints, this ideal situation is almost impossible to achieve.

To take the simplest example, if the family is also completely bureaucratized, then the parents, like the officials, should pass the examination before they can hold positions and have children; If the character and ability are too poor to fulfill the responsibilities of parents in the family, the government should intervene and remove them and call another person to manage them.

Many future science fiction works will not be written so exaggerated......

Since this kind of "divided" family and family has existed for a long time, of course, various institutions that rely on these organizations will also exist, such as business institutions that inherit the family and so on. Therefore, it is not surprising that although they are in a "modern society", they are full of medieval elements such as hereditary, arbitrary, and guild monopolies.

After all, everyone is not far from the Middle Ages, let alone the people who lived in that era.

(End of chapter)