Culture through my eyes: Marriage in the Context of Chinese Filial Piety Culture
Filial piety culture is a traditional culture in China. It originated from Chinese folk customs and has been practiced by the Chinese society from the past to the present. Filial piety is a virtue of respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors, it means respect and obedience in general.
The influence of Chinese filial piety culture on people is deeply rooted, for both the elderly and the young. So in today’s marriage issues, when children and parents have different opinions, conflicts arise between them. For example: children don’t want to get married, but parents and relatives feel it is necessary to form a family when they are old enough. In China, you can often hear people complain about being urged by parents to marry and give birth to children. This is not only a conflict in love, but also in culture. It’s a conflict that inevitably occurs in this culture, which also happens in many other areas, but I think the part about marriage is the most common and the most controversial.
People usually have different ideas or choices about this issue, and the root causes of their choices are the main research direction of this project.
Most people think that Chinese filial piety culture is the right thing, but their definition of filial piety culture is not the most primitive. They talk about respect, care, company, listening. They have removed the parts that have no practical significance, such as lying on ice to ask for carp and burying the son to save the mother in the story of 24 filial piety. filial piety was seen as the basis for an orderly society, together with loyalty of the ministers toward the ruler, and servitude of the wife toward the husband.
Most people put family first and think that family education has the most influence on her. When they have conflicts with their parents, most people choose to avoid positive conflicts, avoid communication to a certain extent, and follow their own ideas, which may lay hidden dangers for the future.
Influenced by the doctrine of the mean in China, the answers given by the participants seem to be very safe. They all have the most perfect parents and perfect families. Of course, we all know that the reality can’t be as peaceful as this. I can often hear people complaining about being urged to marry by their parents and being asked to have children early. Parents usually say, “when I have energy, they can help you take care of your children, or let me have grandchildren before I die. “They stand at the highest point of morality and exert pressure on their children. Children can not face such a request, it will be considered unfilial by all.
One of the subjects, Niko’s answer, inspired me: she mentioned that parents’ interference with adult children stems from the habit of helping their children make all the decisions and arrange everything when they were young. Maybe we should let our parents see that we have independent ability to take care of ourselves, so that they can rest assured and let us make our own decisions.
Tan Hong used her experience to tell me that any relationship needs to be managed, and any relationship needs to be maintained, including between parents and children, and between husband and wife.
In my opinion, parent-child relationship is essentially a relationship between people and should not be specialized or even superior to other interpersonal norms.
The word “filial piety” endows parents with a natural moral commanding point, which is essentially the poison of feudal thought. Under this concept, children’s natural altruistic and reciprocal behavior is misinterpreted as “filial piety”, and all the “disobedient” behaviors of children are regarded as “unfilial”, and the general rules of interpersonal communication are all invalid, resulting in either blind obedience or resentment. Many family conflicts arise from it. So you don’t have to fetter yourself with any thoughts. It’s natural for parents to raise their children and their children to support their parents. But in addition, you are still an individual and a person. You should be able to make your own decisions, have the courage to insist on your own decisions, and be responsible for your own decisions. Parents and we have the grace of birth, but also can only accompany us for a period of time, we must have the ability of self-determination, in order to have a foothold in society.
Wenshan Wang
