Study On The Filial Piety Of Han Dynasty

The rulers of the Han Dynasty initially proposed “administering the country by filial piety” astheir creed, which transferred the filial piety that belonged to patriarchal ethics to the politics. As aresult, the unique culture of administering country by filial piety in the Han Dynasty was formed,which had an impressive effect on Chinese history.The concept of filial piety had come into being in Shang Dynasty. During the Spring andAutumn period, and the Warring States Period，the ideologist endued more annotation to the filialpiety. The Taoists focused on the natural feeling between relatives rather than the etiquette of filialpiety when Legalists denied the necessity of it for they believed the human nature was evil. Inaddition, Confucius insisted on the foundation of filial piety for the patriarchal ethics, such ideawas extended over the universe by Zengzi. As the inheritor of Confucius, Mencius developed thedoctrine and transformed filial obedience into loyalty.The Confucianism moral became the governing doctrine form Emperor Hanwu in the westHan Dynasty. Dong Zhongshu and his fellowmen began to strain their interpretations by theYin-yang and Wu Xing theory that gradually evolved into the new Confucian doctrine of filialpiety characterized by “the same homogeneity between filial piety and loyalty. By the Eastern HanDynasty, the standards of filial piety embodied with obvious theological features. Although thesame homogeneity theory was beneficial to the imperial power, the conflict between the power ofemperor and father existed during the implement process of filial piety.The ruler’s special political policy was also displayed in the fact that they drafted a lot ofconcrete measures to comprehensively implement the policy. Meanwhile, the court followed itsown guideline and relatively regulated “to the aged and for the aged” principles. It also drafted aseries of strict promotional mechanism to reward the filial sons, with paving the ways for theirpolitical promotion. The Filial Classics became the official and populous teaching material,besides; special officials have been set up for filial piety education.The selection of administering the country by filial piety was the consequence of drawing ateaching from the ruin of Qin Dynasty and also the condition at that particular time. The filialpiety principle has powerfully maintained the stability of the Han Dynasty small farmer familyand consolidated the feudalism at the same time. However, the purpose of such policy was tofoster the loyalty of the public which hindered the development of the society.