The book of filial duty

Chapter 17: CHAPTER IV

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About This Book

The work offers a Confucian guide to filial piety, combining doctrinal instruction on respect, ritual care for ancestors, and the family's role as the basis of moral order with twenty-four short exempla and commentaries that model practical devotion. It emphasizes reciprocal duties between generations, the cultivation of reverence in daily conduct, and the idea that domestic harmony underpins wider social and political harmony. Framed as pedagogical material, the text aims to shape personal character and public behavior by teaching youth and families how ritual observance, respect for elders, and familial responsibility foster social cohesion.

CHAPTER IV

THE FILIAL DUTY OF HIGH OFFICERS

If we do not put on such dress as our good Emperors of old would forbid, if we do not speak such words as they would forbid, and if we do not behave ourselves in such a way as they would forbid, then we shall be always right in what we say and what we do. If so, then nobody will be able to find fault with our words or with our deeds, and therefore we shall be able to keep our family from being visited with any serious misfortune, and to offer sacrifices to our ancestors for ever. This is the filial duty of a high officer.

In the Shih Ching it is thus written: “Be diligent every minute to attend upon the one person” (meaning the Emperor).