37. The Family [The Clan]

This hexa­gram rep­re­sents the laws ob­tain­ing with­in the fam­i­ly. The strong line at the top rep­re­sents the fa­ther, the low­est the son. The strong line in the fifth place rep­re­sents the hus­band, the yield­ing sec­ond line the wife. On the other hand, the two strong lines in the fifth and the third place rep­re­sent two broth­ers, and the two weak lines cor­re­lat­ed with them in the fourth and the sec­ond place stand for their re­spec­tive wives. Thus all the con­nec­tions and re­la­tion­ships with­in the fam­i­ly find their ap­pro­pri­ate ex­pres­sion. Each in­di­vid­ual line has the char­ac­ter ac­cord­ing with its place. The fact that a strong line oc­cu­pies the sixth place—where a weak line might be ex­pect­ed—in­di­cates very clear­ly the strong lead­er­ship that must come from the head of the fam­i­ly. The line is to be con­sid­ered here not in its qual­i­ty as the sixth but in its qual­i­ty as the top line. The fam­i­ly shows the laws op­er­a­tive with­in the house­hold that, trans­ferred to out­side life, keep the state and the world in order. The in­flu­ence that goes out from with­in the fam­i­ly is rep­re­sent­ed by the sym­bol of the wind cre­at­ed by fire.

The foun­da­tion of the fam­i­ly is the re­la­tion­ship be­tween hus­band and wife. The tie that holds the fam­i­ly to­geth­er lies in the loy­al­ty and per­se­ver­ance of the wife. Her place is with­in H (sec­ond line), while that of the hus­band is with­out (fifth line). It is in ac­cord with the great laws of na­ture that hus­band and wife take their prop­er places. With­in the fam­i­ly a strong au­thor­i­ty is need­ed; this is rep­re­sent­ed by the par­ents. If the fa­ther is re­al­ly a fa­ther and the son a son, if the elder broth­er ful­fills his po­si­tion, and the younger ful­fills his, if the hus­band is re­al­ly a hus­band and the wife a wife, then the fam­i­ly is in order. When the fam­i­ly is in order, all the so­cial re­la­tion­ships of mankind will be in order.

Three of the five so­cial re­la­tion­ships are to be found with­in the fam­i­ly—that be­tween fa­ther and son, which is the re­la­tion of love, that be­tween hus­band and wife, which is the re­la­tion of chaste con­duct, and that be­tween elder and younger broth­er, which is the re­la­tion of cor­rect­ness. The lov­ing rev­er­ence of the son is then car­ried over to the prince in the form of faith­ful­ness to duty; the af­fec­tion and cor­rect­ness of be­hav­ior ex­ist­ing be­tween the two broth­ers are ex­tend­ed to a friend in the form of loy­al­ty, and to a per­son of su­pe­ri­or rank in the form of def­er­ence. The fam­i­ly is so­ci­ety in em­bryo; it is the na­tive soil on which per­for­mance of moral duty is made easy through nat­ur­al af­fec­tion, so that with­in a small cir­cle a basis of moral prac­tice is cre­at­ed, and this is later widened to in­clude human re­la­tion­ships in gen­er­al.

Heat cre­ates en­er­gy: this is sig­ni­fied by the wind stirred up by the fire and is­su­ing forth from it. This rep­re­sents in­flu­ence work­ing from with­in out­ward. The same thing is need­ed in the reg­u­la­tion of the fam­i­ly. Here too the in­flu­ence on oth­ers must pro­ceed from one’s own per­son. In order to be ca­pa­ble of pro­duc­ing such an in­flu­ence, one’s words must have power, and this they can have only if they are based on some­thing real, just as flame de­pends on its fuel. Words have in­flu­ence only when they are per­ti­nent and clear­ly re­lat­ed to def­i­nite cir­cum­stances. Gen­er­al dis­cours­es and ad­mo­ni­tions have no

H 37- Chia Jin / The Fam­i­ly ef­fect what­so­ev­er. Fur­ther­more, the words must be sup­port­ed by one’s en­tire con­duct, just as the wind is made ef­fec­tive by its du­ra­tion. Only firm and con­sis­tent con­duct will make such an im­pres­sion on oth­ers that they can adapt and con­form to it. If words and con­duct are not in ac­cord and not con­sis­tent, they will have no ef­fect.