Gateway Chronicle 2022

virtues such as rén (humaneness) and on
the social level, stability and unity is
obtained by following traditional lǐ (rituals)
which reveal the individual’s place within a
social hierarchy. This hierarchical aspect of
Confucianism made it attractive to leaders
such as Wu Di, the Han emperor first to
embrace it as a state ideology.
Confucianism maintained dominance,
becoming Neo-Confucianism during the
Song Dynasty (960 to 1279 CE) with
Buddhist and Taoist influences. By the time
of the Qing dynasty (1644 to 1912 CE),
Confucianism reached its apogee.
Confucianism defined the landscape of
childhood during the Qing dynasty. Core to
its teachings was the concept of xiào (filial
piety), the idea children ought to respect,
obey and care for their parents. Rituals
determining the treatment of family
members are found in the Book of Rites
which specifies the language a child can
use towards their parents, the manner in
which they must greet them, the gifts they
can offer and the seating arrangements
they can use. Filial piety is significant in
Confucianism due to the belief the family is
a microcosm of the state. According to the
Confucian Classic of Filial Piety, ‘as they
serve their fathers, so they serve their
rulers, and they reverence them equally’.
The Great Qing Legal Code formalised
these familial bonds, with harsher
punishments applied to crimes committed
against older relatives.
The implications of Qing Confucianism for
young girls were particularly severe. The
position of women in this patriarchal
society was outlined in the Book of
Etiquette and Ceremonial which describes
the ‘three subordinations’ a woman would
follow: as a girl she was obedient to her
father, as a wife to her husband and as a
mother to her sons. Even the female
scholar Ban Zhao living during the Han
period wrote in Lessons for Women, still
taught during the Ming and Qing dynasties,
that on the birth of a girl one should ‘lay the
baby below the bed plainly’ which
‘indicated that she is lowly and weak, and
should regard it as her primary duty to
humble herself before others’. It is
unsurprising that in such a climate the
practice of foot binding was common; the
feet of young girls were bound tightly to
shape them and women with bound feet
wore lotus shoes which were only 5 inches
long and 2 inches wide in a process
intended to create a distinction between
male and female from youth.
Education is another area in the lives of
children that was determined by
Confucianism. During the Sui dynasty (581
to 619 CE), the imperial examination
system became a way to select
bureaucrats according to merit and
knowledge of Chinese (often Confucian)
classics, principal objects of education.
After the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644 CE),
candidates needed to write what was
called an ‘eight-legged essay’, a
standardised essay to display logic and
literacy that required knowledge of
Confucian Classics. Women were
excluded from these examinations and
supporting a candidate for the exam would
be costly, excluding the poorest in society.
The decline of Confucian hegemony was
accelerated by the decline of the Qing
empire, transforming childhood. The
middle of the 19 th century represented the
start of the ‘century of humiliation’. Defeats
in two Opium Wars, defeat in the First
Sino-Japanese War and the suppression of
the Boxer Rebellion signalled the growing
stagnation of the dynasty. With these
failures and the sluggish pace of reform,
the monarchy crumbled under the
pressures of the 1911 Revolution. After the
abdication of the 6-year-old emperor Puyi
in 1912, the public was forced to
reconsider the assumptions that
underpinned the old system.
53 | G ateway Chronicle