 | Confucius - Confucian ethics - 1915 - 356 pages
...clever saying of Mencius, which likewise embodies an ethical principle much insisted upon in China: "There are three things which are unfilial and to have no posterity is the greatest of them." (Bk. iv., pt. i., c. xxvi., v. I.) A Even in filial piety, more is not required of any man than he... | |
 | Edward Westermarck - 1922 - 608 pages
...departed dead. According to Confucius no crime is greater than filial impiety ; and Mencius said that " there are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them." Consequently there can be no greater crime that a man can commit than to remain single. And if his... | |
 | Edward Westermarck - Celibacy - 1922 - 608 pages
...departed "dead. According to Confucius no crime is greater than filial impiety ; and Mencius said that " there are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them." Consequently there can be no greater crime that a man can commit than to remain single. And if his... | |
 | Edward Alsworth Ross - Emigration and immigration - 1927 - 394 pages
..."begging rice" of other spirits. Hence Mencius taught "there are three things which are un filial; and to have no posterity is the greatest of them."...is the parent's prerogative — he wants to see his son settled as soon as possible. Before his son is twenty-one he provides him with a wife as a matter... | |
 | Elias Hershey Sneath - Ethics - 1927 - 388 pages
...of filiality very strongly insisted upon is thus expressed by Mencius. "There are three things that are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them."" He is speaking from the point of view of the Superior Man, for whom this and the other two unfilial... | |
 | Youlan Feng - Philosophy - 1983 - 498 pages
...will still lack filial piety. Mencius meant exactly this when he said : " There are three things that are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them." For if a man has no posterity, the family line (or at least his branch of it), which has been handed... | |
 | Arvind Sharma, Birks Professor of Comparative Religion Arvind Sharma - Religion - 1987 - 326 pages
...that life to the next generation. Not to do so was a serious offense. As the philosopher Mencius said, "There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them" (Mencius 4A:26, Legge 1 966, 725). As we shall see, this sense of the primacy of marriage and the sacredness... | |
 | Arvind Sharma - Religion - 1994 - 476 pages
...spirits would be doomed to pathetic existences as hungry ghosts. According to Confucian tradition, "There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them" (Mencius 4A:26; Legge 1966, 725). In a patrilineal system posterity, of course, means male descendants.... | |
 | Vern L. Bullough, Bonnie Bullough - Psychology - 1994 - 668 pages
...life. For example: "That male and female should dwell together is the greatest of human relations"; "There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the worst of them"; and "When a son is bom, what is desired for him is that he may have a wife; when daughter... | |
 | Harold G. Coward, Phinit Rattanakun - Health & Fitness - 1999 - 287 pages
...piety is to provide male offspring to propagate the family name. Mencius specifically stated that, "There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them all."28 This explains why births in general and male births in particular are welcome events in Chinese... | |
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There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them. 
