The origin and development of the moral ideas

It must be added, however, that the reverence for old age may cease when the grey-head gets so old as to be an incumbrance to those around him;85 and imbecility may put an end to the father’s authority over his family.86 We have previously noticed that parents worn out with age and disease are among some peoples killed or abandoned by their own children.87

When passing from the savage and barbarous races of men to those next above them in civilisation, we find paternal, or parental, authority and filial reverence at their height. In ancient Mexico “necessitous parents were allowed to dispose of any one of their children, in order to relieve their poverty,” whereas a master could not sell a well-behaved slave without his consent.88 A youth was seldom permitted to choose a wife for himself, but was expected to abide by the selection of his parents;89 and “children were bred to stand so much in awe of their parents that even when grown up and married they hardly durst speak before them.”90 So, too, in Nicaragua a father might sell his children as slaves in cases of great necessity,91 and matches were in the larger part of the country arranged by the parents.92 In ancient Peru disobedient children were publicly chastised by their own parents;93 and Inca Pachacutec confirmed the law that sons should obey and serve their fathers until they reached the age of twenty-five, and that none should marry without the consent of the parents and of the parents of the girl.94

In China a house-father reigns almost supreme in his family, and, according to ancient Chinese ideas, not even marriage withdraws the son from his power.95 The law, it is true, prohibits him from killing96 or selling97 his children; but it is only in supreme cases that the State interferes between the head of a household and his family belongings, and the sale of children is practically allowed.98 No person, of whatever age, can act for himself in matrimonial matters during the lifetime or in the neighbourhood of his parents or near senior kinsfolk.99 The law provides that disobedience to the instructions and commands of parents or paternal grandparents shall be punished with one hundred blows,100 and that a still greater punishment shall be inflicted on a son accusing his father or mother and on a grandson accusing his paternal grandparent, even though the accusation prove true.101 Indeed, from earliest youth the Chinese lad is imbued with such respect for his parents that it becomes at last a religious sentiment, and forms, as he gets older, the basis of his only creed—the worship of ancestors.102 Confucianism itself has been briefly described as “an expansion of the root idea of filial piety.”103 The Master said:—“filial piety is the root of all virtue, and the stem out of which grows all moral teaching…. Filial piety is the constant method of Heaven, the righteousness of Earth, and the practical duty of Man…. Of all the actions of man there is none greater than filial piety. In filial piety there is nothing greater than the reverential awe of one’s father.

In the reverential awe shown to one’s father there is nothing greater than the making him the correlate of Heaven.”104 But the idea that filial piety is the fundamental duty of man was not originated by Confucius, it had obtained a firm hold of the national mind long before his time.105 It also prevails in Corea106 and Japan,107 where the authority of a house-father is, or, in the case of Japan, until lately has been,108 as great as in China. “The Japanese maiden, as pure as the purest Christian virgin, will at the command of her father enter the brothel to-morrow, and prostitute herself for life. Not a murmur escapes her lips as she thus filially obeys.”109 In Corea, whilst the first thing inculcated in a child’s mind is respect for his father, little respect is felt for the mother; the child soon learns that a mother’s authority is next to nothing.110