Keith Knapp
Sympathy and Severity: The Father-Son Relationship in Early Medieval China
In recent years, scholars from Japan, Taiwan, and the United States have produced first rate scholarship that delineates the emotional, social, and symbolic importance of the mother-son tie in early and medieval China. Nevertheless, these studies often take for granted the contours of the father-son relationship and slight its emotional significance. By closely examining filial piety stories and their pictorial representations, this paper argues that during the early medieval era (A.D. 100-600) the father-son tie was of tremendous sentimental importance.
In this paper I look at three types of stories that focus on fathers: ones in which sons provide reverent care, i.e. nurturing that exalts the recipient’s status; ones in which sons “return regurgitation;” that is they pay back the care they received as children; and ones in which “bad” fathers persecute their sons. Tales with the first two motifs indicate that sons felt strongly indebted to their fathers for the care they received from them as children. These stories also suggest that fathers were active nurturers of their young sons. Since “bad” fathers turn into good ones once they realize their sons have been slandered, these tales demonstrate that early medieval men assumed that the father-son relationship was naturally good: sons only became alienated from fathers because of conniving women.
Consequently, even though mothers pulled at the heartstrings of their sons, fathers too laid a significant claim on sons’ affections. Although mothers nourished their sons’ emotional well-being, fathers gave their sons the means to establish themselves as men.
John Lagerwey
God the Father and Dao the Mother: Western and Chinese Dualisms
This essay is composed of three parts, corresponding to three theses: 1) dualism is at once universal and particular (cultural); 2) the opposition between God the Father and Dao the Mother is the most apt rendering of the differences between Western and Chinese dualisms; 3) History may be understood as an ongoing patriarchal rationalization whose contours are determined by the particular “bent” of a given culture. By contrast with the temporal preconceptions of Western thought (Plato’s Ideas and the Hebrew God are both “eternal”), China’s spatial bias – both “bents” are at least partly determined by respective writing systems – led it to conceive the body/soul duality as souls within the body, and so to give religious priority to “body technology” (as opposed to salvation of souls), ritual (as opposed to discourse), and the feminine. Because of Platonic negativity with regard to the body and the feminine, by contrast with male/female complementarity in Judaism, our attempt to understand Chinese culture in terms which are familiar to us must begin with Biblical, not Platonic categories – whence the necessity of comparing God the Father and Dao the Mother.
Keith McMahon
Polygyny, Bound Feet, and Perversion
The practices of polygyny and bound feet, now extinct in China, once held in common an underlying structure of perversion. In novels of the Qing dynasty, the man was perverse when he acted as if having multiple wives was not something he desired or initiated, but was something that arrived to him because of external conditions. In particular, women were the agents of polygynous marriage, not the passive participants, because they allowed and encouraged the man to take other wives. I call this form of marriage passive polygyny, where the man passively accepts polygyny. The underlying link between passive polygyny and bound feet has to do with the same logic by which the dominant subject appears to hand the production of a situation – polygyny or bound feet – to the ones who are dominated or, in the case of bound feet, mutilated. Women mutilated themselves and their daughters, but they did so of their own will, by their own methods, and on their own schedule. In households across China from the Song dynasty to the early Republic, mothers initiated and managed the binding of their daughters’ feet. With a bit of modification, the psychoanalytic definition of perversion describes the deep structure of both polygyny and footbinding, and does so in powerful and compelling terms that no one has yet begun to unravel.
Emmanuel Lozerand
Clay-footed Patriarchs. Remarks on Fathers in Modern Japan
The new Japanese Nation-state tried to establish from 1890s an official ideology to make of the head of family the source and the model of the political power.
Nevertheless, if we put aside the official speech and follow the meanders of the Civil code of 1898 for example, or listen to what is expressed by writers of the period, we will be surprised to meet, far from the motionless ideal of the commanding patriarch, different fathers, often soft and fragile, if not totally deficient.
Should the the patriarchal vindication in modern Japan be understood as the natural expression of a social or cultural characteristic? Or on the contrary as an effort, in some respects vain and poignant, to try and establish a paternal authority which never ceased to be lacking?
Nicolas Zufferey
Figures of the Father in Jin Yong and Contemporary Chinese Folk Literature
Filial piety, rejected as the archetype of archaic “feudal” oppression by the reformers of the New Culture Movement (cf. the novel Family of Ba Jin), never quite disappeared from the Chinese landscape, even in the most iconoclastic periods of the Cultural Revolution. It is very much present in martial arts novels, whether it be in Hong Kong in the work of Jin Yong or in the renewal of that literature in China today. It is also present, in diverse forms, in other “popular” novels. This article will focus on such literature, trying to establish a link between the rehabilitation of Confucianism and the attemps to reconcile Confucianism and modernity in recent discourse, especially in the PRC.
Mark Edward Lewis
Mothers and Sons in Early Imperial China
This article will focus on evidence of a shifting balance of power within the household, and secondarily within the lineage, that entailed a relative rise in the position of the mother (or rather mothers, as most elite households had concubines who could play an important role in the politics of the household). As I will elaborate, this rise of maternal status and power took the form of an increasing emphasis on the household as an “emotional community,” in which relations and hierarchy were determined equally or more by the emotional bonds between individuals than by their hierarchical relations as stipulated in the formal ties that constituted the lineage. This development, which can be textually discerned from the second half of the second century A.D. through the fifth century, marked not only an important step in the development of the family unit in China, but also a significant stage in China’s history of emotions.
Brigitte Baptandier
About the Symbolic Murder of the Father and the Elusive Aspect of the Present
Starting from the ancient canonical Chinese rules about kinship and mourning, we examine the place of the father and of his name in the ritual space of generations, as it is yet conceived today, in modern society. We shall introduce the manifest fear that a female anti-genealogical network should jeopardise the patrilineal arborescence, prevailing in the Chinese kinship rules. We shall get onto the theme of the particular destiny of a child to put his (her) father’s life at risk because of the time of his (her) birth. We shall expose the sublimation process and the “poisonous remedies” that are used then. We shall conclude on the present generation and on the new situation imposed on it to give birth to a single child and to assume, all the same, it’s duties towards ancestors.
Jérôme Bourgon
Lapsus of Laïus. Either Regicide or Parricide, the Indefinable “Murder of the Father”
In their translation of the term “Œdipus complex”, Chinese psychoanalysts overlooked the murder of the father to focus only on the desire for the mother. This lapsus may serve as an insight for the fact that the killing of one’s own father in China was conferred a different meaning than in the West. The comparison of Roman law and the Confucianism in the matter of parricide shows that in ancient China the murder of the father was viewed in close connection with the murder of the sovereign, the significance of parricide being eclipsed by that of the regicide. In Chinese laws in force from the Tang through the late Qing, killing one’s father was considered to be no more serious a crime, and the child no more grievously punished, than the killing of another member of the clan as long as the victim was older than the perpetrator. This leads to some inferences upon the nature of kinship and authority in Chinese civilization.
Robert Gassmann
眾父——對一個古代中國名詞后綴的幾點看法
眾多中國古典文獻中含有以“父”字結尾的名詞,如“逢丑父”、“ 管周父”等(見《左傳》),有時也作“正考父”、“正考甫”(第一種形式見《左傳》,第二種形式見《孔子家語》)。它們可能是春秋戰國時期用來指代顯貴人物的慣用語。雖然詞典中它們的定義是“用于高位者的敬語”(如Axel Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, p. 243),我們對這些詞的用法還是不甚了解。這種后綴的主要形式是“父”字,其本意為父親,所以父親在此后綴的使用中應該扮演了重要的角色,然而我們還不太清楚這種借用的依據。文本研究了以這些后綴為名的多位人物的歷史、社會和譜系學資料,并由此理出了一系列獲得這一敬稱的原則和標準。我們看到這類后綴不僅是一種榮譽頭銜,而且也對應了某種官銜,并與一定的官職聯系在一起。這里我們無意展開這一官職的具體描述,因為這需要對上述人物的生平作進一步的研究。
Jean Levi
不够充分的父親——古代中國政治用語發微
把人君稱為天下“父母”的政治隱喻是本文的研究對象,我們可以把這一現象定義為“不够充分的父親”。從春秋時代起,文人用語已在君臣/父子之間建立了嚴格的一一對應,而為什么戰國和兩漢的儒家文獻却都把人君不僅稱為“父”也稱為“母”呢?在人與事的治理中,單一的父系德操似乎在這些文本的作者們眼中顯得匱乏無力。
Rainier Lanselle
父親的烙印——關于蒲松齡出生的注釋
在精神分析理論中,父親不僅僅是一個真實存在的人,而且首先是向主題開啟象征之門的某種位置和功能。作為語言領域關鍵的操作者,他指定并引入主觀和性的“大它”。父之名關系到母親的欲望以及主體回應這一欲望的方式,主題的這種回應是通過其想象對象的喪失過程——閹割來實現的。由于父親代表著缺失,他的存在便不易被識別出來,因為這種存在盡管很有效,但卻屬于意符范疇,而非實際存在。蒲松齡(1640-1715)的《聊齋志異》一書處處表現出父之名的衰竭和失效,因為此書描述了他對“陽具型”強悍女人的種種幻想,以及她們帶來的那種無以名狀的恐懼。由于沒有意識到上述的隱含層面,書中的不少故事令人費解。這一層面的嵌入并非我們的后現代想象,而是蒲松齡自己的刻意之作,他身體力行地向我們展示了父親缺失的烙印。
Keith Knapp
從孝子傳看魏晉南北朝父子闗係
南愷時
美國南卡羅萊納州立塞特多大學歷史系
近年來有許多日本、美國、以及台湾地區的學者都在研究中古時期中國母子闗係的親密性問題。這些學者都認為父子之間的闗係相對來說比較正式而冷漠,他們之間的感情似乎比較浅薄。事實真是如此嗎?魏晉南北朝時,孝子傳很受文人重視。這些故事描寫了父母對兒子將來盡孝的期望,但同時也流露出他們可能遭兒子遺棄的恐惧。在孝子傳中我們看到,兒子們很疼惜母親——母親想要的東西,兒子一定會去設法獲得。但是從孝子傳和孝子圖中,我們意識到父子的闗係其實也是很深厚的。最令人感動的孝子圖描繪了兒子對父親的愛惜,譬如在種田時,董永回頭看著他父親坐在鹿車時的畫面,或是邢渠喂他那牙齒落盡的老父吃飯時的情景。這類故事在孝子傳中不勝枚舉,可見雖然父子之間的闗係表面上嚴肅,但兒子們内心卻還是對他們的父親滿懷深情的。
John Lagerwey
神-父/道-母:中西二元論
本文分為三部分,分別對應以下三個論題:1)二元論既普遍存在又具有(文化)特殊性;2)神-父/道-母的對立很好地概括了中西二元論的差異;3)歷史可以被理解為一種父系制度下的理性化過程,這一過程在不同的文化背景下呈現出不同的特征。與西方思想中的時間性先驗(如柏拉圖的“理”和希伯萊神祇的永恒性)不同,中國的空間性先驗把肉體/精神的對立改寫成肉體與精神的融合,并把宗教優先賦予了“肉體技術”(而非靈魂救贖)、儀式(而非話語)及女性。這種中西間的差異一部分是由各自的書寫體系所決定的。柏拉圖對肉體和女性持消極態度,而猶太教卻宣揚男女互補性,因此想要以我們熟悉的方式去理解中國文化,就要從圣經而不是從柏拉圖的范疇著手。所以我們認為有必要把神-父與道-母二者作比較。
Keith McMahon
簡介:〈一夫多妻, 纏足, 與 倒錯“Perversion”〉
納妾與纏足兩習俗早已絕跡, 但曾具有共同的潛在邏輯與結構. 心理分析理論的倒錯概念(perversion )可用來形容此邏輯。許多清代小說中,倒錯的男人使人覺得多娶小妾似乎並非自己所愿,而是情勢所迫。尤其特別的是,婦人成為多妻婚姻的主動促成者,而非被動參與者,因為她們允許甚至鼓勵丈夫納妾。這種婚姻可稱為被動的一夫多妻,即男人被動接受一夫多妻。被動的一夫多妻與纏足的共同點表現為這種行為的實際主導者——男人似乎將主導權交給了被支配者或受折磨者——女人。女人們出于自己的意志并以自己的方法及進度來為自己與她們的女兒們進行纏足。心理分析理論中的倒錯概念只要稍經改動,就能用來詮釋一夫多妻與纏足二者的深層結構。本文試圖首次用這種令人信服的理論進行這一領域的探索研究。
Emmanuel Lozerand
外強中干的父輩——現代日本父親研究
明治時代的日本以其僵硬的父系體制(家父長制)而著稱,這一制度在1945年日本戰敗后有所動搖,并在二十世紀末的人口危機中被徹底粉碎。本文想要弄清在其政治領導人推行的意識形態和權力下父親的真實地位,因為這個問題并不如想象中的那樣顯而易見。同時,我們也想從大批同時代的作家身上理出父親形象全面去勢的一些主要特征。父系制度是否真的體現了現代日本的特性呢?
Nicolas Zufferey
金庸筆下的父親形象與中國當代通俗文學
盡管孝道被新文化運動的改良主義者們(如巴金的《家》)斥為封建壓迫典型而遭摒棄,它卻從未真正退出過中國的歷史舞臺,而且就是在最具反傳統精神的文化大革命時期亦然。無論是在香港金庸的作品中,還是在今天大陸地區復蘇的武俠文學中都可以看到它的身影。同時,其他類型的“通俗”小說也以不同的形式展現了這一主題。本文把此類文學與儒教復興、以及近年來尤其是大陸方面試圖融合儒教與現代性的言論放在一起研究。
Mark Edward Lewis
中國古代的母子
許多大戶人家都有一些能決定家族命運的妻妾,本文從事實出發,記述了這些母親們勢力的增長,以及家庭和門族中權力中心的轉移。我們認為,這種母系地位和權力的上升是與家庭作為“情感群體”的重要性相聯系的。在一個“情感群體”中,人際關系和社會等級的確立不僅取決于組成家族的形式化譜系,而且更依賴于個體之間的情感依附。這一轉變可以從公元二到五世紀的文獻中觀察到。它不僅是中國家庭基本組成發展中的重要一環,也是中國情感史上的關鍵一刻。
Brigitte Baptandier
象征性弒父與當下游離
以中國古代正統的親屬關系和服喪制度為背景,我們研究了今日現代社會中父親及父之名在世代交替的儀式中所占的位置。我們注意到,一種女性反家族譜系關系網的存在威脅到中國親屬關系中占主導地位的父系樹狀繁衍,因而引起擔憂。之后,我們特別提到了一個因生辰八字而將其父親置之死地的孩子的特殊命運,并討論了其中涉及到的升華過程和“毒解藥”問題。最后,我們分析了這一代獨生子女家庭的新環境:他們不得不在只有一個孩子的情況下肩負起傳宗接代的使命。
Jérôme Bourgon
弒父——匿跡于弒君與弒親È