The book of filial duty

Chapter 32: CHAPTER XI

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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 XI

THE FIVE PUNISHMENTS

The criminal law consists principally of five punishments, which are directed against three thousand offences. Of them, disobedience to one’s parents is considered the most heinous crime.

To threaten the sovereign with force is an act which shows that the wrongdoer does not know the duty of an inferior to a superior; to say anything against the government founded by the wise men of many generations gone by is an act which shows that the speaker does not know what law is; and to say that a son need not be filial to his parents is also an act which shows that the speaker does not know what is the natural relation and duty between a son and parents. Such acts will no doubt lead the man to a wrong course of life.