Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China (review)

Every child who grows up in a Confucian culture will inevitably, either in grandmother's lap at home or via a textbook in the classroom, be exposed to tales of filial piety in which children go to extremes to care for a parent. These stories, similar to Western fairy tales, do more than simply function as a way of stimulating the imagination; they are a manifestation of the paramount cultural value of xiao (filial piety). They embody the Confucian ideal and make it comprehensible and concrete so that others are able to follow it. More importantly, they reveal the vivid and complex landscape of social life, the "attitude toward authority, patterns of residence, conceptions of self, marriage practices, gender preferences, emotional life, religious worship and social relations" (p. 3). Keith Knapp's far-ranging, in-depth study of these tales is one of a kind, offering a compelling historical and conceptual context to further our understanding of Confucian culture, especially medieval Confucianism, in a fresh light.

Knapp introduces the subject through a brief discussion of how these tales have been misinterpreted, for example by the modern Chinese intellectual Lu Xun, by Christian missionaries, and by Western sinologists, and he explains why we should take these tales seriously:

[U]nderstanding their functions and messages will shed light on many aspects of early medieval China, such as how the educated elite defined merit and worth, how they envisioned ideal social relations both inside and outside the family, how they talked about and justified social class, how they understood the world as an interdependent moral cosmos, how they attached great importance to Confucian values and ritual, and how they gendered virtue.

(p. 4)

The significance of this passage is demonstrated in a careful and multifaceted study of more than 330 original children's tales from three historical sources: "private collections of filial piety stories, the dynastic histories' collective biographies of extraordinary filial children and sections on filial piety from Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) encyclopedias" (p. 9). The contexts in which these tales originated are insightfully analyzed: "the aims of their creators, the circumstances under which they were written, the identity of their readers, the ideology that informed them and the historical trends that shaped their contents" (p. 6). Using an approach taken from European hagiographies and exempla, Knapp argues that filial-piety stories are propagandistic in nature because their transmitters circulated them to bring about specific ends (p. 6). Filial children are Confucian saints because "they practice an asceticism in which they deny themselves ordinary pleasures, such as savory food, warm clothing, government posts, and legitimately earned wealth; and the divine world confirms their sanctity by favoring them with miracles" (p. 7).

After a useful introduction, Knapp develops his exploration in seven chapters. Chapter 1 deals with two important historical trends that contributed to the prominence of filial piety stories: "the growth of extended families among the elite and the gradual penetration of Confucianism into upper class values and rituals" (p. 13). From the Han dynasty on, the extended large family was a key component in ensuring a lineage's financial health, physical security, and local power, and yet maintaining harmony in extended families was difficult and challenging. The heads of families were attracted to Confucianism as a mechanism for justifying and strengthening the hierarchical order within the family. An understanding of this historical background is important for fleshing out some deeper features of these tales.

In chapter 2, attention turns to the filial-piety stories themselves: their structure, historicity, origins, functions, and transmission. The majority of the tales are oral narratives that embody Ru (Confucian) virtues and rituals. Each tale consists of four parts: an introductory section; the narrative description of filial acts; the rewards received, from either natural or supernatural sources; and a moral or historical commentary.

In chapter 3, one particular text, Accounts of Filial Offspring, is used...