Of the “five relationships” in Confucianism, the five bonds that men in Chinese society were to observe and promote, it was the fifth, friendship, that was unique. The others, those that bound father and son, ruler and minister, husband and wife, older and younger brother, were overtly concerned with the maintenance of China as a guojia, literally a “state-family”—a state modeled on the principles of family organization.[1] They denoted hierarchical, obligatory bonds of mutual devotion that together formed the web of Confucian social relationships that was to provide the source of parallel devotions to family and state. Sons, in the traditional formulation, learned to be capable ministers by turning their devotion to their parents into loyalty to the emperor.[2] The state in turn was modeled on the family, with the emperor’s management of his own family serving as the basis for his running of the state.
Friendship was different. It was neither a family bond nor a state bond, and therefore lay outside the web of parallel devotions that bound these together. Moreover, it was voluntary. One was obliged to serve one’s family (and preserve it by producing offspring) and obliged to serve a virtuous ruler, but there was no requirement that one make friends.[3] Finally, friendship was the one bond that could be non-hierarchical, and it was this feature that dramatically set it apart from other social relations.
In exploring the character of the friendship bond, and the particular status of friendship in Confucianism, this essay makes several contentions. First, despite the Confucian admiration and respect for friendship, many writers remained deeply wary of it. Friends well chosen could improve one’s morality, thereby serving the needs of the state and family. On the other hand, poorly chosen friends tempted one with evil pursuits such as drinking and gambling. They also removed one from the world that was centered on service to family and state. This caution is evident across much of Chinese history. It can be found in the writings of early Confucians, including Confucius himself, but becomes most apparent in the works of later, and in particular Neo-Confucian, writers of the Song dynasty (960–1279) and after.
Second, this essay argues that these Confucian writers were wary of friendship at least in part because of its potential for creating a human relationship that was not hierarchical. So geared was the Confucian schema of social relations around the hierarchical needs of the state-family that equality in friendship was potentially subversive.
Finally, this essay argues that where the possibility of equality in friendship existed in the writings of Confucians, it was undercut by ways of writing about friendship that stressed the fleeting, even momentary, nature of intense, non-hierarchical friendships, or that such friendships were life stages. Those who sought more than hierarchy in human relations were thus offered moments of contentment, while being reminded that such relationships could neither remain stable nor threaten the other more important social bonds. Friendship was thus constructed as the one bond whose function was the service of the others. Having a good friend should make one a better son, brother, or official.
The general place of hierarchy in Confucian thought is a subject too complex to be fully dealt with here. It is certain, though, that from the Confucian Analects forward hierarchy was essential to the functioning of the Confucian system. It was the common element in the five bonds, the cement that held them together and made them part of a unified system. From the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), hierarchy was well integrated into cosmological theories by connecting it to yin and yang, the two elemental forces that underpin the universe.[4] In all things, there had to be an upper and a lower, and this applied to human relations. Good social order meant a father over his son, a ruler over his minister, a husband over his wife, an elder brother over his younger brother, and, perhaps, even a friend over his friend.
Whether that hierarchy amounted to oppression was and is strenuously debated. Early Chinese communists, who sought to free the individual from oppression within and without the family, seized on the hierarchical nature of Confucianism as the source of many of China’s ills.[5] Others, though, have been quick to point out that the Confucian conception of hierarchy is based not on one-way obedience but on reciprocity and mutual obligations.[6] To this, we may add the view that only the Western-biased mind would see fulfillment in human relations as possible exclusively through equality. Hierarchy, even an obligation to obey, need not be tantamount to oppression. Indeed, the pervasive practice of fictive kinship in China may suggest that people model non-kin relationships on the hierarchy of the family because they find that hierarchy most comforting.[7] Those on both sides of the debate, however, agree that hierarchy is central to Confucianism.
Somehow, in discussions of the Confucian view of human relations, friendship has received little attention. The overwhelming prominence and importance of family ties in China is in part responsible for this silence. However, as the other essays in this Forum suggest, relationships between men played an essential role in the society. Much of men’s lives were spent in male-only institutions. And because friendship was the only bond in society to be freely chosen, it was potentially the most powerful relationship. It is the Confucian attempt to manage the power of those relationships that is the subject here.
Before proceeding further, several clarifications are in order. First, this essay examines the Confucian attitude toward friendship as expressed primarily in writings that conceptualize the friendship bond within the Confucian schema of social relations, or that offer advice to elite young men on how to choose friends. It deals less with actual friendships, which certainly varied tremendously, and more with how the friendship relationship was conceived within the constellation of human relations and what the ideal type of friendship was supposed to be. Second, these authors I consider wrote primarily for an elite audience. They were not completely disconnected from the world of Lee McIsaac’s sworn brothers or Adrian Davis’s murderous ones. Confucian essayists wrote, for example, on the dangers of forming sworn brotherhoods.[8] But the men who worked in the factories, coal mines, and on the waterfront docks in Chongqing did not and could not read these essays, which were intended for an audience of elite Chinese males.
Fourth, while this argument begins with Confucius and ends with Confucian thinkers in the nineteenth century, it must be recognized that Confucian writers were the products of their times, and societal developments inevitably affected the ways they conceived of human relations. Attitudes toward friendship changed over time, and as more is written on this topic those differences will become apparent: some are merely suggested here. There were important differences, for example, between the Confucian thinkers of the pre-Song period and the Neo-Confucian thinkers of the Song and after; those who constructed a revitalized Confucianism meant to answer Buddhism’s challenge to the Chinese worldview. So the generalizations presented here are no more than just generalizations—true for most, but not all, periods.[9] This was especially the case in historical periods that Confucian thinkers would subsequently describe as decadent. A classic symptom of decadence was human relations, and most particularly the five bonds, out of order. During such periods, even orthodox Confucian ideology was influenced by changed social relations. This caveat aside, there is, by and large, remarkable continuity in writings about friendship, even across a span as long as the one followed here.
One area in which change was evident concerned utility in friendship. Confucians always trod a narrow line when it came to this issue, on the one hand eschewing crass utility or profit in any human relationship, on the other mitigating the power of the friendship bond by making it clear that friendship should serve useful ends for the family and society. Even some of the earliest writings on friendship evidence this tension. The following description offers one of the most idealistic depictions of friendship in the Confucian canon:
[Friendship is] when the Confucian shares an intent and conduct, and when one’s achievements bring happiness to the other. Friends do not spurn each other because of higher or lower station, and when they do not see each other for long periods and hear gossip they do not give it credence. They walk together in the path of virtue, and when they share these things they are friends, when they do not, they part. This is the Confucian’s way of forming friendship.[10]
Even in this idealistic vision, however, the requirement that friendship be useful is not far below the surface. It is firmly lodged in the notion of shared intent (hezhi). For the Confucian, that shared intent is a shared commitment to moral improvement and service of family and state. At the other extreme is another passage from a well-known early text, which states that if one serves one’s parents diligently and yet does not enjoy a reputation for filial piety, it is the fault of one’s friends.[11] It is a friend’s duty to maintain our reputation for filial piety—which is, after all, more important than friendship in the society. An oft-quoted passage from a commentary to a poem in the Book of Poetry similarly asserts the utilitarian quality of friendship: “From the emperor to the commoner, all need friends to succeed.”[12] Over time, views of the role of utility in friendship changed. Neo-Confucian authors, particularly those of the Song, placed greater emphasis on friendship’s role in perfecting morality and serving the state. Confucian writers from the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties wrote during a period of increased competitiveness and social change. Their essays, it will be suggested, reflected those dual forces.
Third, the notions of hierarchy and equality presented in this essay require explanation. The hierarchy between two friends was neither clear nor absolute; instead, it was complex, at times even negotiated and situational. In a family, position and birth order tended to make hierarchy clear. Between friends, however, differences in such factors as social status, age, learning, and virtue all helped determine hierarchy. One might take as a superior friend a younger man, though he occupied a superior official position, for example. But although hierarchy was complex, it was still essential. Hierarchical differentiation best permitted friends to advance. Even the most idealistic Confucian male sought friendship with one of superior virtue, so that he could become more virtuous, or of superior learning, so that he could become better educated. For the more career-oriented, friendship with a superior meant an easier advancement in one’s official life. When friendship was not based on mutual advancement, one possibility was the presence of an equal friendship. Equality, like hierarchy, was neither clear nor permanent, but its presence signaled retreat from the accepted notion that one should focus on advancement by hierarchy—a withdrawal that was dangerous to the Confucian view of human relations. Associated with it were friendships that were based on affection rather than self-improvement.
That friendship was considered potentially dangerous is clear from the variety of writings that warned about its power for improving or contaminating the individual. Many authors warned of the contaminating power of friendship through analogies. The well-known expression, “He who touches vermilion will be reddened, while he who touches ink will be blackened,” was one way of expressing it.[13] To befriend a man of virtue was to “enter a room fragrant with orchids. After some time one does not smell them [but smells of orchids oneself].” In contrast, to befriend a small man is to “enter a place where fish is smelt. After some time one does not smell the foul odors, but is emitting them.”[14]
Confucian writers who discussed youdao, the “way of friendship,” sought to undercut the power of the friendship bond. While the five bonds were not necessarily ranked, writers made it clear that the fifth and last bond, friendship, was to be kept inferior to the others. Mourning rituals, those all-important signifiers of the relative importance various relationships held in society, mandated that friends not observe formal mourning for each other. One paid condolence calls on the family of a deceased friend, felt sad for the loss of him, but was not permitted to wear the traditional hempen gown on his behalf.[15]
In other ways, too, Confucian writers tried to lessen the power of friendship, particularly when it did not serve the needs of the hierarchical state-family. Society functioned when filial piety (xiao—the devotion of child to parent) was transformed into loyalty (zhong—the devotion of son to ruler). There was no place for friendship in this equation, save when that friendship might help one serve a ruler or parent. In their arguments, writers stressed that friendship should serve the larger needs of the society or help in the advancement of the individual; it should not serve emotional needs. This perspective on friendship can be traced to the writings of classical authors, although it would achieve much greater force in later periods. In the Analects, Confucius steers a middle path, recognizing the emotional aspect of friendship but deemphasizing it all the same. The second sentence of the Analects asks, “To have friends coming from distant places—is that not delightful?”[16] At the same time, Confucius is careful to emphasize friendship’s inferiority to other social relations. The text juxtaposes, for example, Confucius’s treatment of the ruler with his treatment of a friend. When the ruler called for him, he left immediately to answer his call without even waiting for his ox to be yoked. But when a friend sent him a gift, even if it were a valuable gift such as a carriage and horses, he would not bow in thanks.[17] Rulers, like fathers, deserved a particular deference—for such hierarchy was basic to the effective functioning of family and state. The only gift for which he bowed was a gift of sacrificial meat, because such a gift served the requirements of ritual.[18] And when the Master twice enjoins his readers to “Have no friends not as good as yourself,” he emphasizes that the purpose of friendship is the individual’s advancement, and indoctrination into the Confucian way.[19] Friendship was to be integrally related to the goals of the state and family, a point made clear by the great Confucian philosopher Mencius.[20]
Neo-Confucians went further in stressing that friendship was only to serve the goals of the individual’s learning of the Confucian way. In their hands, even the second sentence of the Analects is drained of its emotional content. For the renowned Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200), the joy in having friends come from afar is one’s personal joy at having his virtue perfected.[21]
In other ways, Neo-Confucians lessened the extent of the friendship bond. The classic record of Han dynasty Confucianism, The Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall, had noted that one could share property with a friend, with parents’ consent, and die for a friend, if parents are no longer living.[22] Indeed, mention of friendships in which one friend was willing to die for another are not uncommon before the Song. Thereafter, they all but disappear.[23]
The Neo-Confucian perspective on friendship remained the orthodox position through the dynastic period. Five hundred years later, Weng Fanggang (1733–1818) agreed that the function of friendship was essentially education. He stated that “the junzi [or ideal Confucian] takes good care in establishing friendships, for it is through friendship that the temperament is transformed, doubtful interpretations are analyzed, and one’s information is broadened.”[24]
In this view of friendship, writers stressed that care should be taken not to demean oneself when trying to make a friend. In doing so, they hearkened back to a statement in the Analects that one owes a friend only a faithful admonition and should not disgrace oneself through overly strenuous efforts to reform him.[25] Intensity in friendship was frowned on, a position epitomized in the well-known Confucian dictum that the friendship of the junzi was “as insipid as water, while that of the small man is sugary like rich wine.”[26] And people should not take on other friends as charity cases. For, as Wang Wan (1624–1691) noted, although Confu-cius’s dictum that one should have no friend not as good as oneself left open the possibility of making a friend by first improving him, only a junzi would be equal to that task.[27] This was far indeed from a willingness to share property with a friend or die on his behalf.
In seeking to undercut the emotional power of the friendship bond, Confucians reinterpreted other relevant passages from ancient texts to drain them of their emotional depiction of friendship. A passage from the Book of Changes (I Ching), for example, reads,
When three people journey together,
Their number decreases by one.
When one man journeys alone,
He finds a companion.[28]
The surface meaning of the text is that intimacy in friendship can only be between two people. As Richard Wilhelm noted of this passage, “When there are three people together, jealousy arises. One of them will have to go. A very close bond is possible only between two people. But when one man is lonely, he is certain to find a companion who complements him.”[29] To Zhu Xi, the passage was a commentary on the changes of yin and yang lines in the Book of Changes, and there is no mention of friendship. The three people journeying together represent three yang lines, the tendency of which is the loss of one of them; the one man journeying alone represents one yang line, the tendency of which is to add a complementary yin line.[30]
Writers who sought to undercut the power of friendship argued that it should be kept hierarchical, and they did this chiefly by analogizing the friendship relationship, or basing it on, one of the other hierarchical relationships in the society, such as ruler-minister, elder-younger brother, teacher-student, or husband-wife. In each case, the message is that friendships should be hierarchical, generally to serve the advancement of the individual. With the friendship relationship made analogous to one of the other bonds, a potentially equal relationship was made hierarchical.
One way in which Confucians reinforced the hierarchy of friendship was by stressing that it should be modeled on the inherently hierarchical fraternal bond. This viewpoint is embodied in what is likely the most frequently quoted Chinese proverb on friendship: “When at home, you have your brothers; when abroad, you have your friends.” Wang Youliang (1742–1797) discussed this notion extensively in his essay “Correct Friendship.” Wang was one of those filial prodigies whom Confucianism lauded. While he was still a child, he was known for the sacrifices he had made for parents and elder brothers.[31] Although the purpose of Wang’s essay is to decry the practice of sworn brotherhood, he does so with a lengthy discussion of the relationship between friendship and brotherhood. The essence of his argument is that creating a sworn brotherhood confuses friendship with brotherhood, while actually their natures are parallel. Friendship, he argues, is close to the teacher-student relationship but is closer still to the relationship of brothers.[32] Brothers, like a family of geese, Wang wrote, were naturally to fly one behind the other, in hierarchical formation. This same hierarchically based harmony should apply in the case of friends.[33]
In other ways, too, Wang saw friendship as distinct from and yet parallel to what he considered to be the more important fraternal bond. Elder brothers protect their younger brothers and help them become established in the world. In the same way, superior friends help us become established in the world. Just as a son with no brothers leads a lonely existence, one will not become established without friends. Quoting the well-known dictum on friendship, he wrote, “When at home, you have your brothers; when abroad, you have your friends,” and explained: “For men with no brothers, there are none who have established themselves who have not had friends to help them.” Friendship must always remain subordinate to brotherhood, however, because while the former represented the will of men, the latter represented the will of heaven.[34]
Friendship constructed as the bond of teacher and student was expressed in a well-known statement in the Analects: “When three people move together, surely there is one who can teach me.”[35] Indeed, it was when a friend functioned as a teacher that the individual came closest to fulfillment of the Confucian way. Confucians construed friendship as a relationship that would result in self-development—a point of view epitomized in some of the Analects’ most famous statements on friendship.[36] As Tu Wei-ming has noted, the “way of the friend” and “way of the teacher” were “intimately connected,” and “Friendship as well as the teacher student relationship exists for the sake of communal self transformation. Its purpose is moral education.”[37]
The friendship relationship was also made analogous to the ruler-minister relationship, in which both partners were obliged to offer advice to each other.[38] As one source expressed it, “If the ruler does not admonish his minister, then good government is lost. If the gentleman does not instruct his friend, then virtue is lost.”[39] Analogizing the friendship relationship to that of ruler and minister not only kept the relationship hierarchical, it also drained it of a close emotional bond. The relationship of parent to child was characterized by love (qin), while that between ruler and minister was characterized by the still powerful but unemotional righteousness (yi). It was the parent-child relationship that was supposed to be the emotional one.[40]
On some occasions, friendship was made analogous to the relationship of husband and wife. In such descriptions, we find what we generally take to be homosexuality. Such friendships were often described by reference to two famous men from the Zhou dynasty (1111–255 bce) who “loved each other the moment they set eyes on each other,” and whose love is described as that of “husband and wife.”[41] While not a Confucian story per se, the story has Confucian overtones—the friends make contact initially to study together, even though the relationship becomes one in which they “share the same pillow.” For Westerners, many of whom are accustomed to seeing the boundary between “safe” and “dangerous” relationships at the sexual divide, where platonic love (agape) becomes erotic love (eros), the Chinese case suggests a different boundary. To Chinese authors, such relationships are not dangerous, because they do not upset hierarchical relations. This finding supports current scholarship on Chinese homosexuality, which suggests the centrality of hierarchy. As Matthew Sommer’s work suggests, hierarchy, whether of gender or another social relationship, was integrally related to the ways in which homosexuality was popularly perceived.[42] This same focus on hierarchy was noted by Bret Hinsch, who observed that homosexual relationships tended to be described in terms of “social relationships rather than erotic essence.”[43] Placing his own findings in the context of those of Hinsch and Sommer, Michael Szonyi finds that, despite what may have been an increasing judicial and literary intolerance of homosexuality in late imperial Chinese society, homosexual practice continued because, in reality, homosexuality was not fundamentally upsetting to the social order when it did not upset hierarchical relations in the society and when it did not interfere with a son’s duties to produce heirs. “The understanding of homoerotic desire in Qing society was thus not just a matter of bodies desiring bodies, but involved the relative ages and social positions of those involved, as well as the issue of social and familial responsibilities.”[44] Homosexuality was not as threatening to the system as non-hierarchical relationships were.
Wariness over the friendship bond intensified over time, as noted above. The position that friendship should be hierarchical seems, like the argument that it should not be an emotional tie, to have become more prominent among Neo-Confucians. Mencius, for example, while connecting friendship with good order in family and state, had explicitly addressed the issue of hierarchy and declared that the only requirement of friendship was that it be maintained with the virtuous.[45] Despite this argument, for subsequent Confucian writers, hierarchy was synonymous with good order. In the competitive atmosphere of the Ming and Qing dynasties, when a successful official career was increasingly elusive, equal friendships were increasingly threatening. To seek equal friendships implied stagnation in social relations and withdrawal from the competition through which men advanced. It was perceived as dangerous for aspiring officials to seek friendship with those who were, like themselves, still commoners. Taken to its logical extreme, such advice amounted to a system of friendship analogous to hypergamous marriage, in which there was tremendous pressure to choose friendship only with one’s superiors. Confucians who made such arguments referred back to some of the same passages in earlier texts as their predecessors in the Song, but these passages took on new meanings. Authors began to consider questions such as whether elite youths could befriend commoners. And their focus on the utility of friendship was expressed as advancement in official life, rather than with moral improvement.
One such writer was the well-known Fang Zongcheng (1818–1888).[46] His essay on friendship examined two seemingly contradictory passages from Mencius, one that takes a negative view of even honest commoners, because they live by the approval of others, and another that takes a positive view of them, for their refusal to sell themselves for the sake of a superior’s approval. Fang first reconciles the contradiction by asserting that the commoners to be looked up to, whom Mencius referred to as “the villagers who have regard for themselves,” were distinguishable by their willingness to stand up for their principles, even if it meant incurring others’ disapproval. Fang continues to argue, however, that when it comes to those who are pursuing an official position, the more appropriate quotation from Mencius is one that advises the scholar to begin with the virtuous scholars in one’s villages in making friends. Those aspiring to office, in other words, should not pursue friendship with commoners.[47]
While the competitiveness of Ming and Qing China reinforced and accentuated the hierarchy of friendship, it also led some writers in the opposite direction, toward friendship as a refuge. Such a movement was evident in the writings of Han Tan (1637–1704), an official and scholar from Suzhou. While still suggesting the dangers of friendship with those who are not yet officials, he nonetheless observed that one could have a beneficial friendship with a non-official who, in addition to sharing one’s intent, was willing to endure the same hardships (literally, “go through wind and rain night and morning” together).[48] In returning to the idea of sacrifice in a friendship, Han Tan was sliding toward an unhierarchical understanding of friendship. A similar dynamic was at work in the writings of Yu Yue (1821–1907). In an essay on the friendships that should not be discontinued, Yu argued that those made while enduring hardships, while poor, and while traveling, and with those willing to die on one’s behalf must always be maintained.[49] Some essays, such as one by Weng Fanggang, whose works are referred to above, maintained a complex view of friendship that was at once idealistic and utilitarian, hierarchical and egalitarian. It evidenced sympathy for the Neo-Confucian emphasis on friendship for the purpose of moral cultivation but also acknowledged the role of friendship in advancing the official career. And it began with the egalitarian view of friendship as being like two hands that must obey each other.[50]
The writings of Weng, Han, and Yu may be indicative of a move toward companionate friendship, akin to the companionate marriage found by Dorothy Ko. She observed a limited rise in this phenomenon in seventeenth-century China, the groundwork for which was laid in the sixteenth, amid the breakdown of traditional notions of hierarchy. Her depiction of the Confucian wariness of companionate marriage applies equally to companionate friendship: “A focus on individual compatibility and emotional needs, however, was the very concern that the Confucian familial system sought to discourage.”[51] Friendship, when chosen not for one’s advancement in morality or career, might serve as a refuge from the hierarchy of the Confucian system. When writers advocated friendships that were not based on either moral cultivation or career advancement but on enduring hardships together, they edged closer to the self-sacrificing forms of friendship not evident since before the Song.
Throughout Chinese history, powerful friendships, particularly those involving self-sacrifice, were often labeled as Guan-Bao friendships. Guan Zhong and Bao Shu were officials of the Zhou period. The basic account of their friendship appears in Sima Qian’s Historical Records.[52] As childhood friends, Guan and Bao frequently got small jobs together. Because Guan’s family was poor, Bao would let him take more of their earnings. As young men, they served competing would-be rulers of the state of Qi. When Guan was imprisoned, Bao came to his help by recommending him to his own leader, the duke of Huan. Bao even went so far as to ensure that Guan was promoted above himself. With Guan’s help, the duke of Huan was able to unite the Zhou dynasty under his own leadership.
The lore surrounding the friendship of Guan Zhong and Bao Shu was widespread. In one account, for example, Guan agonizes so over Bao’s illness that he refuses to eat or drink.
Once when Bao Shu was sick, Guan Zhong on his account would neither eat nor take water nor broth. As a blood relative he suffered over him. [Critics said], “Bao Shu is sick, and yet your not drinking water or even broth on his account can be of no use to him, and it will also lead to your injury. Moreover, Bao Shu’s relationship to you is neither of ruler to minister nor of father to son. On his account to drink neither water nor broth, does this not lose what is right?”[53]
As this quotation indicates, sacrificing one’s health for the sake of filial piety or loyalty to the emperor would be acceptable, but friendship never warranted such an extreme action.
Guan Zhong and Bao Shu were equals as friends. They expressed that equality (so accounts of their friendship read) by rejecting in their dealings with each other the hierarchical values their society held dear. When Guan Zhong sacrificed his health to worry over Bao Shu, he subverted the hierarchical values of family loyalty. When Bao Shu sacrificed his career to have Guan Zhong promoted above him, he betrayed his family (to whom he bore the absolute responsibility of success in office) and the competitive system of advancement itself.[54]
In subsequent accounts of Guan-Bao friendship, what marked these relationships was a man’s willing sacrifice of either his official position or family obligations for the sake of his friend.[55] In the preface to a poem written during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420), for example, Vice Censor-in-Chief Fu Xian celebrated his friendship with Lu Hongji, an official who occupied the important post of Frontrider to the Heir Apparent. Through a court intrigue, Fu had been disgraced in office. Rather than shunning his friend, Lu brought his case to the heir apparent. In the poem, Fu wrote, “Contented in the affection of my friend / I yearn to follow in the enduring footsteps of Guan and Bao.”[56]
In finding the basis for such relationships, writers such as Fu Xian referred back to the fraternal bond. Guan-Bao friends were described as tongsheng, literally, as born together. The phrase had two meanings. First, it meant “having the same father,” that is, as if the friends were actually brothers. Second, it meant as if born “in the same year.” Thus, although their relationship had the power of brotherhood, it could surpass that relationship by achieving equality. Brothers were born one after another, and so there had (even in the case of twins) to be an older and a younger brother. Guan-Bao friends were like brothers who were of identical ages and therefore equals.[57]
The Guan-Bao friendship would seem to be the clearest example of a dangerous friendship, because of its power to subvert the hierarchical basis of Confucian human relations. Yet it somehow managed to remain an expression of orthodox friendship, and writers describe friendships as Guan-Bao with no sign of disapproval. The explanation for this seeming anomaly lies in the story of Guan Zhong and Bao Shu itself. All who knew the classical allusion understood that their friendship was that of young men; later, they grew apart, and Guan Zhong went on to be a famous, friendless official who put his career second to no one. Late in life, when Guan Zhong was sick, the duke of Huan asked him who should take his place, proposing Bao Shu. Guan Zhong praised Bao Shu but went on to say he would be inappropriate for the job, thus revealing that, in the end, loyalty to his ruler is more important than friendship.[58] Guan-Bao friendship is portrayed as a life stage, and in most cases a single act of sacrifice, on the way to becoming a mature individual. When friends later went on to act in their own interests, it was not considered betrayal of friendship but life course—loyalty to the ruler overpowering loyalty to the friend. In the Guan-Bao friendship of Song Sheng and Li Biao, for example, Song Sheng sends his friend and subordinate official to an undesirable post, to avoid showing favoritism.[59] By describing a friendship that would ordinarily threaten the system as Guan-Bao, Confucian discourse gave expression to friends’ desires for equality. At the same time, that discourse limited those relationships by implying that Guan-Bao friendships were merely life stages or even single actions of self-sacrifice.[60]
In other ways, too, discourse that admitted the possibility of equality in friendship simultaneously worked to limit its extent. Consider, for example, the well-known literary allusions describing intense friendship. These tend not to celebrate, or even describe, enduring relationships of equality. Instead, they describe the unfulfilled longing for friendship, for a true equal, or even for true understanding as a fleeting moment. One such allusion, from the Book of Songs, is to the mournful cry of the bird in search of its companion.[61] Another, from the Record of Rites, is to the quest for the zhiyin, the one who hears the same resonance in a musical note as his friend. Both seem to describe unfulfillment, a relationship that is unattainable or does not persist, instability.[62]
This instability was also evident in friends’ literary exchanges. The main genre for the expression of affection between males, for example, was the songbie poem, written upon a man’s departure to a far-off place, usually on official business. Here, what is relevant is that the expression of friendship becomes most possible when the men are taking leave of each other. It is thus a celebration of what is already changing. At faraway posts, they will remain friends but most likely will not be able to make sacrifices for each other. The songbie genre, moreover, reaffirms the primacy of loyalty to the state, as it celebrates friendship. It is, after all, one’s (implied) more important official duties that are taking one away from one’s friend.
This essay has suggested some of Confucian authors’ wariness about the friendship bond. Friendship could be accepted, so long as it was subordinate to and supportive of the other relations in society. To accomplish this, it was to be kept hierarchical. Hierarchy in friendship helped reinforce hierarchy in other social relations. When a young man treated older friends with deference, he reinforced an important source of social cohesion: the respect for elders. Hierarchy was also the means by which the society advanced. When a young man treated his social superior with deference, he enhanced his own opportunities and, by extension, promoted the welfare of his family.
This essay has also allowed us to explore the qualities of friendship, and even the category of human relationship dubbed as friendship, in China; something that has not been done before. Utility, for example, was always a part of friendship in China, even while crass utility was eschewed and even if the ends of friendship differed over time. And it was utility that made for the highest forms of friendship, those that ultimately bolstered the family and the society. How different this was from Aristotle’s notion of friendship, which shunned friendships based on utility as merely incidental.[63]
I conclude with a question posed to me by a reader of an earlier version of this article, who asked, if Neo-Confucians were so concerned with the potentially deleterious effects of friendship, why did they not recommend that men do away with it entirely? The answer has to be that this could not be done because many in the society hungered for friendship, for the joys it provided, and for the relief it offered from the demands of living in a guojia, a state-family. If it could not provide the “haven of egalitarianism” it does in modern Greece, it could at least be a “sentimental alternative to maternal love and the amity of kinship.”[64] And the friendship relationship, properly managed, could serve the needs of the state-family. The conceptualization of male friendship in China was, functionally speaking, geared toward the management of relationships between men. Friendship had its potential for good, but it was a dangerous human relationship.
Norman Kutcher is an associate professor of history at Syracuse University, where he has been working since 1991. He is the author of Mourning in Late Imperial China: Filial Piety and the State (1999), as well as “The Death of the Xiaoxian Empress: Bureaucratic Betrayals and the Crises of Eighteenth-Century Chinese Rule,” published in the Journal of Asian Studies 56 (1997). This essay on friendship grew out of a longstanding interest in the subject; another gender-related interest is in Chinese eunuchs. His current primary research project is the Yuanming Yuan, the beloved residence of Qing emperors that was destroyed by an allied expedition of the British and French in 1860.
Notes
An earlier form of this article was presented at the 1996 meeting of the American Historical Association in a panel entitled “The Male-Male Bond in Late Imperial and Republican China.” In preparing the original and subsequent drafts, I have learned much from conversations with several people and in the course of doing so strengthened my own bonds of friendship. I thank the other panelists, who were Lee McIsaac, Adrian Davis, Susan Mann, and Gail Hershatter, and also the audience members present on that day. Steve Angle and Benjamin Fischer kindly read drafts of the paper and offered many helpful suggestions. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Liu Fei-wen and Lin Wei-zen, who pored over baffling passages with me. Finally, I thank Michael Grossberg and Jeffrey Wasserstrom at the AHR, and their five anonymous reviewers, for considerable help and encouragement. I bear full responsibility for errors that may remain.
1 In modern Chinese, guojia is defined as nation; in pre-modern usage, as a state, or ruling dynasty. See Zhang Qijun, et al., Zhongwen da cidian (Taibei, 1973), 4896.236. Mencius used the term and noted that the basis of the state was the family. Mengzi xinyi, in Xie Bingying, et al, eds., Si shu duben (Taibei, 1966), 365; The Works of Mencius, James Legge, trans. (1895; rpt. edn., New York, 1970), 295.
2 A comprehensive statement of this worldview appears in the writings of Fang Xiaoru (1357–1402). See Ji Xiuzhu, Ming chu daru Fang Xiaoru yanjiu (Taibei, 1991), 18–25. For a discussion of precedents, see also Norman Kutcher, Mourning in Late Imperial China: Filial Piety and the State (New York, 1999), 11–18.
3 It may seem strange to describe the relationship between ruler and minister as non-voluntary, and indeed there was not complete agreement on this matter. In general, though, it was agreed that if the government was virtuous, a son owed it to his parents and to the state to serve. The idea that a minister could serve voluntarily was championed by Lü Liuliang (1629–1683). See Wm. Theodore DeBary, The Trouble with Confucianism (Cambridge, 1991), 64.
4 This viewpoint is generally credited to Dong Zhongshu of the Han dynasty, although as Sarah A. Queen has noted, historians have somewhat overstated Dong’s contribution to the systemization of yin-yang thought. Queen, From Chronicle to Canon: The Hermeneutics of the Spring and Autumn, According to Tung Chung-shu (New York, 1996), 3.
5 See Kam Louie, Critiques of Confucius in Contemporary China (New York, 1980).
6 Tu Wei-ming, Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation (Albany, N.Y., 1985), 139; Lien-sheng Yang, “The Concept of ‘Pao’ as a Basis for Social Relations in China,” in Chinese Thought and Institutions, John K. Fairbank, ed. (Chicago, 1957).
7 As Susan Mann notes, “those who lacked family ties invented them.” Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford, Calif., 1997), 139.
8 Wang Youliang, “Zheng you,” in He Changling, et al., eds., Qing jingshi wenbian (rpt. edn., Shanghai, 1992), 68.12a.
9 Joseph P. McDermott, for example, notes that the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries witnessed heightened concern with the friendship bond. Some writers during that time, he observes, were able to use friendship as a moral base for the critique of imperial rule. McDermott, “Friendship and Its Friends in the Late Ming,” in Family Process and Political Process in Modern Chinese History, 2 vols. (Taipei, 1992), 1: 67–96. Wm. Theodore DeBary, in his discussion of late Ming thought, similarly discusses Li Zhi’s focus on the friendship relationship as primary. DeBary, “Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought,” in DeBary, et al., eds., Self and Society in Ming Thought (New York, 1970), 199. And if the work A New Account of Tales of the World [Shishuo xinyu] is an indication of elite attitudes, there were many writers in the Six Dynasties period who extolled the value of friendship and elevated it above other bonds in the society. Liu I-ch’ing, A New Account of Tales of the World, with Commentary by Liu Chün, Richard B. Mather, trans. (Minneapolis, Minn., 1976), 6, 7.
10 Wang Meng’ou and Wang Yunwu, eds., Li ji jinzhu jinyi (rpt. edn., Taibei, 1984), 2.957.
11 Wang Su, Kongzi jiayu (rpt. edn., Taibei, 1977), 5.226.
12 Kong Yingda, ed., Mao shi zheng yi (rpt. edn., Shanghai, 1927–36), 9/3.1a.
13 Ouyang Xun, Yiwen leiju (rpt. edn., Shangai, 1982), 21.393.
14 Dai De, Da Dai Li ji jinzhu jinyi, Guo Ming, ed. (Taibei, 1975), 205.
15 In the Li ji, one of Confucius’s best-known disciples reported that at the grave of a friend he would live in a plain hut but not cry. Li ji jinzhu jinyi, 1.84. An exception was in the late Ming, during the time when there was increased interest in the friendship bond. Xie Zhaozhe, Wu za zu (rpt. edn., Beiji Xiaoshuo Daguan, n.d.), 14.4343–44. Xie suggests that extremely close friends might mourn as brothers.
16 Confucius, Analects, 1: 1.
17 Confucius, Analects, 10: 14, 10: 16.
18 Confucius, Analects, 10: 16.
19 Confucius, Analects, 1: 8, 9: 25.
20 To paraphrase Mencius: A lower-level official gained the confidence of the ruler by earning the trust of his friends. And he gained the trust of his friends by serving his parents well. Mencius, Mengzi xinyi, 371; Legge, Works of Mencius, 302.
21 See Chu Hsi and Lü Tsu-ch’ien, Reflections on Things at Hand: The Neo-Confucian Anthology, Wing-tsit Chan, trans. (New York, 1967), 168.
22 Ban Gu, Bohu tong shuzheng, 2 vols. (rpt. edn., Beijing, 1994), 1: 377–78; Pan Ku, Po Hu T’ung: The Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall, Tjan Tjoe Som, trans., 2 vols. (Leiden, 1949–52), 2: 562–63. The locus classicus of dying for a friend is the Li ji.
23 These friendships were generally designated by the term wenxian jiao. The term appears in dynastic histories before the Song, but only once in the Song History and never in post-Song dynastic histories.
24 Weng Fanggang, “You shuo,” in Fuchuzhai wenji (rpt. edn., Tongwen tushuguan, n.d.), 10.5a.
25 Confucius, Analects, 12: 23.
26 This expression appears in the “Biao ji” section of Li ji. See Li ji jinzhu jinyi, 2.866. It is also discussed in the “Shan mu” section of Zhuangzi. See Zhuangzi jinzhu jinyi (Beijing, 1988), 512; Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York, 1968), 215.
27 Wang Wan, “Jiaodao shuo,” in Yaofeng wenchao (rpt. edn., Taibei, 1983), 9.18a.
28 Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes, trans., The I Ching or Book of Changes (Princeton, N.J., 1967), 160. Zhou yi, in Sishu wujing (rpt. edn., Beijing, 1985), 37.
29 Wilhelm and Baynes, I Ching, 160.
30 Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei, Li Jingde, ed. (rpt. edn., Beijing, 1988), 1834. See also commentary by Zhu Xi in Zhou yi, 37.
31 Qingshi liezhuan (Beijing, 1928), 72.4a.
32 Wang Youliang, “Zheng you,” 68.12a.
33 For the locus classicus of the brothers’ obligation to move hierarchically, like the flight of geese, see the Wang Zhi chapter of Li ji.
34 Wang Youliang, “Zheng you,” 68.12a.
35 Confucius, Analects, 7: 22.
36 One such comment began: “Friendships with the upright, the trustworthy, and the learned are beneficial.” Confucius, Analects, 16: 4. Another such comment was, “The ideal Confucian gathers friends with learning, and with learning develops his benevolence.” Analects, 12: 24. For more analogies of friendship to the teacher/student relationship, see Chen Yaowen, Tian zhong ji (rpt. edn., Shanghai, 1991), chap. 20.
37 Tu, Confucian Thought, 139.
38 See Xiong Gongzhe, ed., Xunzi jinzhu jinyi (Taibei, 1975), 568.
39 Lu Yuanjun, ed., Shuo yuan jinzhu jinyi (Taibei, 1977), 93. Zhu Xi makes the same point. Chu and Lü, Reflections on Things at Hand, 267.
40 Zhuzi yulei, 262.
41 For a Song dynasty retelling of the story, see Li Fang, et al., eds., Taiping Guangji (rpt. edn., Beijing, 1959), 389.3104; for a Ming retelling, see Chen Yaowen, Tian zhong ji, 20.39a.
42 Matthew H. Sommer, “The Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma,” Modern China 23 (April 1997): 168.
43 Bret Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China (Berkeley, Calif., 1990), 21.
44 Michael Szonyi, “The Cult of Hu Tianbao and the Eighteenth-Century Discourse on Homosexuality,” Late Imperial China 19 (June 1998): 11.
45 In response to an inquiry on the nature of friendship, Mencius responded, “Friendship should be maintained without any presumption on the grounds of one’s superior age, or station, or the circumstances of his relatives. Friendship with a man is friendship with his virtue, and does not admit of assumptions of superiority.” Mencius, 5: 3 (adapted from Legge, Works of Mencius, 140).
46 Another was Wang Wan (1624–1691), whose writings were referred to above, n. 27.
47 Fang Zongcheng, “Shang you shuo,” in Baitang ji cibian, in Baitang yishu, 18 vols. (rpt. edn., Taibei, 1973), 12: 4.11a-b.
48 Han Tan, “Qu you lun,” in Qing jingshi wenbian (Shanghai, 1992), 6.3a.
49 Yu Yue, “Fanjue jiaolun,” in Binmeng waiji (Chunzaitang quanshu edn., 1902), 1.14b–16b.
50 Weng Fanggang, “You shuo,” 10.5b.
51 Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford, Calif., 1994), 179.
52 For a translation, see Evan Morgan, A Guide to the Wenli Styles and Chinese Ideals (London, 1912), 118–27.
53 Wang Qinruo, Cefu yuangui (rpt. edn., Taibei, 1967), 881.10432.
54 The foregoing of career success is at the center of another well-known friendship, that of Chen Zhong and Lei Yi, who lived during the second century ce. When Lei Yi passed the governmental examination, he sought to yield it to Chen Zhong, but he was not permitted to do so by the examiners. Following their refusal, he feigned madness, and in the end both men were awarded the degree.
55 For examples of Guan-Bao friendship, see Pianzi leibian (1727 edn.), 166.9b. For discussion, see Chen Yaowen, Tian zhong ji, 20.22a–23a.
56 Fu Xian, “Ganbie fu,” in Fuzhongcheng ji, in Han Wei liuchao baisanjia ji (rpt. edn., Taibei, 1963), 2a.
57 Zhongwen da cidian, 3372.70. For descriptions of Guan-Bao friends as tongsheng, see Fu Xian, “Ganbie fu,” 2a; and Shen Yue, Song Shu (rpt. edn., Shanghai, 1994), 93.295.
58 W. Allyn Rickett, trans., Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, vol. 1 (Princeton, N.J., 1985), 383.
59 Wei Shou, Wei shu, in Ershiwu shi (Shanghai, 1986), 62.160.
60 Guan-Bao friendships might be purged of their subversive qualities in other ways. In one instance, filial piety was noted as ultimately taking precedence over Guan-Bao friendship. Fan Ye, Hou Han shu jinzhu jinyi, Zhang Huikang and Yi Mengchun, eds. (rpt. edn., Changsha, Hunan, 1998), 311.879.
61 “Fa mu,” in Shi jing (Changsha, Hunan, 1993), 310–11; “The Woodman’s Ax (165),” Arthur Waley and Joseph R. Allen, trans., The Book of Songs (New York, 1996), 137.
62 Zhiyin appears first in the “Yue ji” section of the Li ji. Li ji jinzhu jinyi, 2.611. On such a use of zhiyin, see Gong Kui, “Da Chen Huazhong,” in Yunlin ji (Siku Quanshu zhenben Series 3, vol. 278, 1972), 4b.
63 “Now those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other.” Nicomachean Ethics, VIII.3. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, David Ross, trans. (New York, 1925), 195.
64 Evthymios Papataxiarchis, “Friends of the Heart: Male Commensal Solidarity, Gender, and Kinship in Aegean Greece,” in Peter Loizos and Evthymios Papataxiarchis, eds., Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece (Princeton, N.J., 1991), 158.
By NORMAN KUTCHER