Research Paper on Confucian Family: Transforming for a Feminist Future

Introduction

The article Confucian Family for a Feminist Future discusses the historical manifestations and the imaginations of the founders of Confucian. According to Herr (2012), the Confucian family was the primary source of misogynist norms and activities that have predisposed women into the suffering of varying proportions. Hence, the improvement of the livelihood and equality of women in Eastern Asia requires a radical transformation of the Confucian family to match the ideal conceptions of the western family. Herr opposes that argument since he believes that the western family orientation cannot fit the traditional Confucian family setup, and the reconstruction of the Confucian family setup would only favor the Confucian future feminism. Herr's position requires the current western ideal views of family and close examination of its traditions.

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Confucian East societies have massively changed in terms of their political, social, and economic aspects. However, the Confucian values are still pervasive in most of the daily practices in that region. Since the western cultures are readily available for the East Asian communities to use as a perfect template of building changing their traditions to meet the perceived standard cultures, some East Asian feminists believe that the process of change of their equality and well-being would need a drastic transformation of the Confucian family to comply with the perceived perfect societal standards of living which are offered by the western alternatives. However, Herr believes that such a move would be detrimental to the Confucian family. These concepts would be hazardous to the family in the sense that they would be both premature and misguided. The modification of the family would be wrong and premature since the current manifestations of the Confucian family were built from modified primary Confucian values and ideas. The move would be misguided since the western concept of the family would not be plausible or feasible in the East Asian context. Lack of feasibilities between the two cultures would be as a result of incompatibilities or predicated problematic assumptions.

Herr supported his position by carefully examining the historical representations of the Confucian family. He then analyzed the ideal conceptions of the western culture concerning the family. The two notions he studied were the justice perspective and care ethics. Herr believed that the latter was more conducive to the modern Confucianism. He concluded that the two conceptions are not suitable for the East Asian context and claimed that the only appropriate way of reconstructing the Confucian family to be conducive to the feminist future is to build it from the core ideas and values of Confucianism.

The Confucian Family in Theory and Practice

The Confucian family is composed of two parts, the relationship between parent and child and the relation between husband and full. The previous relationship forms an integral part of Confucianism since it is regarded as the root of human kindness (ren), which is a primary virtue. Ren is related to li, which is an intersubjective norm of Confucianism that defines proper social behavior. According to Herr, Confucianism emphasizes more on the relationship between a parent and a child since it is the foundation for building the self. According to Herr, a family is the primary ingredient of love, and it, therefore, provides a higher chance of offering love. Herr describes the attributes of li in the parent-child relationship and outlines the duties of children in ensuring that they love and respect their parents. According to Herr, a respectful child should serve their parents based on the li principles, honor them, and bury them based on the principles of li. Li also requires children to develop an attitude of reverence, and they should not go overboard in trying to rectify the misdeeds of their parents.

The husband-wife relationship is the second axis of the Confucian family. It is connected to the fundamentals of the parent-child relationship. For a child to be born and raised in the right manner, a husband must form a union with a wife, and this creates a necessary process of filial duty in Confucianism. However, in the Mencian context, the distinction (pie), which acts as a proper li of the relationship between husband and wife, is the distinction between then inner and outer spheres. Hence, adherence to pie implies that men should focus on matters related to external affairs since they occupy the public world, and women should concentrate on issues that pertain to the household since they hold the domestic realm. This Confucian structure of the family is considered pervasive and sharply in contrast with the western culture since it restricts women from pursuing their careers and other life opportunities.

Herr analyzed the transformation that the original form of Confucianism faced after the death of Confucius. He pointed out that there were drastic changes in the interpretation of the husband-wife relation. It was later viewed as a metaphysical difference between a man and woman that subjected women to inferiority based on the cosmological order, which states that heaven dominates the earth. A more profound form of patriarchal Confucian family that emerged as a result of the new interpretation of pie is portrayed in the Choson Dynasty, which was purely built of then Confucian values. In a social system that was built to organize patrilineal descent based on the agnatic principle, the li describing the connection between a wife and husband (pie) was considered as strict physical segregation of sexes and doomed to subordinate women to men.

Western Alternative Conceptions of Family

The Confucian traditions disillusioned most feminists in East Asia, and that prompted them to look for alternative better cultures that promoted equality and progress of women in society. Two western models captured the imaginations of these feminists. These models include the ideal family from the justice perspective and the perfect family in care ethics. The perfect family from the justice perspective model is built from the Rawls' principle, which purports that a legal policy is one that is accepted by everyone affected by it in an initial situation. However, Okin dispute Rawls' view of the primary subject of justice concerning family by claiming that he ignored gender role in defining those in the original positions as family head or family representatives who are not legible in determining familial justice. Additionally, Okin also warns the East Asian feminists who yearn of the western culture as a substitute for their retrogressive culture by highlighting how unjust they are since they constitute a societal system that subjects women to exploitation, abuse, and dependency during marriage dissolution or when anticipating.

Despite Okin's criticisms of Rawls, theory, she acknowledges the feminist potential that manifests in his approach and the general application of the liberal principles of justice, which she views as a way of challenging the entrenched societal gender. For Rawls' theory to be valid to Confucianism, Okin suggests that it should be applied in the original position that entails the gender of participants, which should be placed behind the veil of ignorance. Under a unique situation, the social structures and public policies that define sexes and family should be determined by a basic model that would reduce gender. Herr disclosed the open plans that should not be omitted in fostering for equal legal treatments. The people who get indulged in the division of labor between sexes should be treated specially protected, and such protections should be built into laws to minimize injustice. However, these radical modifications will require more concentrations to be made on the child-rearing and work-life of people of both sexes when they have small children to take care of.

The Ideal Family in Care Ethics

The proponents of care ethics sharply disagree with both Okin and Rawls on their idea of justice as the core element of building a happy unbiased family. According to Herr, a family should be built around love, compassion, and happiness and not judge, which is often the product of rational thinking. Herr also pointed out a lack of commitment in the Rawlsian perspective of family as it allows one to opt-out at will, and it is void of empathy or secure emotional connection. According to care ethicists, natural caring that is portrayed in mothering should be applied by people in other relationships. Based on the ideals of the caring principles, ethicists believe that one should pay attention to the history, emotional states, needs, and specific peculiarities of others and by actively engaging them in dialogue. However, such beliefs can only be actualized through a radical change in society. According to Herr, the central concern of an ideal community would be the provision of proper care and the active development of all children.

Assessing Western Alternatives from an East Asian Perspective

Herr analyzed the connection between care ethics and Confucianism family in terms of family ideals. Among the two conceptions, Herr observed that the ideals of care ethics would merge well with the fundamental moral basis of Confucianism. There are different similarities between care ethics and Confucianism that were identified by Herr in his analysis of the ideals of the latter and the modifications that should be applied to it based on the western culture. The first striking resemblance between the two concepts is that they both consider caring familial relations as psychosocial and significant factors. They both believe relations as a fundamental part of human lives, especially the parent-child relation in Confucianism and the relationship between a mother and a child in care ethics. The second similarity between the two concepts is the intimate connection between emotion and morality. The two ideas reiterate that sensitivity, caring, compassion and empathy are the primary prerequisites of righteousness, and as defined by Herr, a moral person is not one who controls their emotions but one who creates such positive feelings. In Confucianism, honesty enhances the full growth of its virtues, and the same applies to care ethics.

Herr does not believe that the similarities between care ethics and Confucianism warrant the former to be the East Asian future feminism. He believes that ren cannot be equated to the caring that the proponents of care ethics advocate for. This is because the criteria applied by Confucianism in achieving ren cannot be replaced using expressing care in care ethics. In the context of care ethics, a caregiver is often superior to the recipient of attention, and they usually understand that emotion is not just a fundamental prerequisite for caring but also a perfect way of offering relation. Much is not covered in Confucianism concerning the li of affection that parents should display towards their children. According to Herr, Confucianism family placed much emphasis on the love of parents towards their kids primarily because the traditions of a Confucian were based mainly on farming upon which parents were required to relent their farms to their adult children when they get older to carry out farm activities. Despite strict adherence of the relation by Confucianism family, it presupposes reciprocity in which both parties should act according to ren and express li to each other. Herr observed that Confucianism does not offer more emphasis on the parent-child relationship in terms of the emotions that should exist between the two, which is in sharp contrast with ideals of care ethics that reiterate the importance of the relationship between a parent a...