Chu Hsi’s Family Ethical Thoughts And Its Contemporary Value

Chu Hsi is a famous Neo-Confucianism scholar of the Southern Song Dynasty. He makes a comprehensive summary of the past Confucianism. He is another milestone in the development of Confucian after Confucius and Mencius. His Confucian thoughts contain rich family ethical thoughts. There have many questions of family ethics in current society, such as tensions between parents and children, the divorce rate rising, brothers anger dispute, and so on. It has strong theoretical and practical significances to collate and research Chu Hsi’s family ethical thoughts for the stability and healthy development of contemporary family.The research of this subject falls into Chu Hsi’s family ethical thoughts and their contemporary value. First, through analyzing the background of Chu Hsi’s age, the thesis points out the social ethic issues he faces. And it also studies the reasons for his family ethical thoughts. Then the article searches for the philosophical foundation of Chu Hsi’s family ethical thoughts and analyzes the influences of the former Confucianists’ s ethical thoughts. Next, the paper intends to comprehensively interpret his family ethical thoughts, including affectionate father and filial children, kind husband and gentle wife, friendly and respectful brothers and family virtues, etc. In the end, main features of Chu Hsi’s family ethical thoughts are analyzed, what’s more, the essay researches their limitations and reasonable notes, and explores their contemporary significance.On the one hand, Chu Hsi concerns about the love between family members and emphasizes on the reciprocity and bidirectionality of rights and obligations. On the other hand, for the purpose of maintaining social stability, he also spreads the word about the feudal patriarchal hierarchy pecking ethic, which appears conflicts with his family ethical thoughts, where the thesis shows its innovation. At the same time, this paper gives a new viewpoint on women’s keeping to chastity, which, in Chu Hsi’s opinion, tries to persuade widow not to remarry for the purpose of providing for the aged and fatherless, rather than preserving chastity after the death of her husband. It is a real ideal for widow not to remarry. Chu Hsi takes flexible viewpoints when he deal with the above question.