There are differences between husband and wife in the Five Ethics. Can anyone explain in detail?

"Husband and wife are different" means that the husband is responsible for the outside world and the wife is the domestic wife, and there are different divisions of labor.

The couple forms a family, which is the core of the family. The male is responsible for the financial life of the family, while the female is the internal leader, caring for her husband and raising children. Husband and wife are different and each has his or her own tasks.

From "Mencius Tengwengong 1" by Meng Ke during the Warring States Period: "The sage is worried, so he makes the contract a disciple and teaches human ethics: father and son are related, monarch and minister are righteous, husband and wife are distinguished, and elders and young are orderly. "Friends have faith."

Translation: The saint was worried about this and appointed Qi as a disciple to educate the people on the ethical relationships and principles that should exist between people - there is a relationship between father and son. As for relatives, there are etiquette and righteousness between monarch and ministers, there is distinction between inside and outside between husband and wife, there is an order of honor and inferiority between old and young, and there is integrity between friends.

Extended information

Pre-Qin Confucian philosophers valued maintaining harmonious relationships among people, maintaining the stability of various interpersonal relationships, and paying attention to everyone's status, value, and rights in human relations. and responsibilities, and pay attention to the codes of conduct and ethics that different social roles should abide by.

Mencius inherited the thoughts of his predecessors and defined "human relations". This is an authoritative conclusion on human relations, identifying five types of interpersonal relationships in society and five principles for handling these relationships.

There is also a theory similar to that of Mencius in Zengzi's "Great Learning" in the Spring and Autumn Period: "To be a king, stop at benevolence; to be a minister, stop at respect; to be a son, stop at filial piety; to be a father, stop at kindness; Friendship with Chinese people ends with trust. "The scope of Chinese people mentioned here is larger than friends, and the moral principle is "trust".

(Translation: As a king, you should try your best to implement benevolent government; as a minister, you should try your best to respect the king; as a child, you should try your best to be filial to your parents; as a father, you should try your best to be kind to your children ; When interacting with others, you must try your best to be honest. )

The human relations discussed after the Han Dynasty basically inherited and introduced Mencius’s view, with “father and son, monarch and minister, husband and wife, brothers, and friends” as the main concepts. The five basic relationships in society were later also called the "Five Ethics".

As for the basic moral principles that should be followed by the ten roles in the five-ethics relationship, Dai Sheng of the Western Han Dynasty's "Book of Rites·Liyun" has the "Ten Righteousness": "Father is kind and son is filial, brother is good and brother is brotherly brother; A righteous husband listens to his wife, the elders benefit and the young are obedient, the king is benevolent and the minister is loyal, these are the ten things called human righteousness."

(Translation: Parents are kind to their children, and children are filial to their parents. The elder brother should be kind and be kind. A younger brother should respect his elder brother, a husband should value harmony, a wife should respect the three obediences and four virtues, a friend should value friendship, a partner should be trustworthy, a king should be polite and virtuous, and a minister should be loyal)

This is a code that stipulates that each party in the Five Ethics should abide by. It emphasizes that the relationship between father and son, brother and brother, husband and wife, elders and young, monarch and ministers is mutual, and is not required as required after the Han Dynasty. One party absolutely obeys the other.

The "Five Ethics" and "Ten Righteousness" proposed by Pre-Qin Confucians based on the idea of ??equal love established the basic relationships between people in ancient feudal society and the moral principles that should be observed. Authoritative and institutionalized and become the core of traditional ethics.

China.com--Pre-Qin Philosophy: The Light of Ancient Chinese Wisdom