Patriarchy = Cultural Longevity

Readership: All
Theme: Cracking Nuts; The Christian Red Pill; Transactions;
Length: 600 words
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Filial Piety / Patriarchy in China and Taiwan

Historically, China has ALWAYS been a Patriarchal culture.  ALWAYS!  (Up until about 80-100 years ago, as I’ll get to in the next post.)  That’s what Filial Piety (xiào, 孝) is all about.  I repeat, Filial Piety IS Chinese Patriarchy.  The Chinese character, 孝, depicts a social context in which the entire family is collectively tied to the land (土), where the family holds authority over the son (子), but the land is sacrificed for the son (represented by the slash through 土).  It is implied that the son should be thankful for the unearned and unlimited favor he receives from the father and family.  In practice, this arrangement is quid pro quo, meaning that the more humble and grateful the son is to the father and family, the more favor and honor he shall receive.

Filial Piety is not that far removed from the Biblical model of Patriarchy.  This fully explains why Filial Piety / Chinese Patriarchy is THE reason why Chinese culture has endured for thousands of years.

But rather than viewing Filial Piety as a multi-millennia-long tradition of societal-stabilizing Chinese Patriarchy, Western sources consistently ignore the central values of honoring one’s father and investing in one’s son, and instead describe Filial Piety as a foundational Confucian virtue emphasizing deep respect, obedience, and care for parents and ancestors.  Or worse, a collectivist, brain-dead loyalty to one’s family.  But either way, it is always described as a bizarre collection of awkward social habits involving bowing and scraping, and its customs are regarded as similar to the Chinese Fire Drill trope.  This is a Western-biased and wholly unfair depiction of Filial Piety.

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Taiwanese Pastor’s Wives are SAHMs

In response to my critique of the influential role of pastor’s wives, Surfdumb asked,

“Jack is probably in a good position to tell us about the Chinese pastors and wives of the persecuted home church. Are those wives still coven leaders? They might be, but bossing other women around seems to be a Chinese feature. They are ruthless and graceless with each other from what I’ve seen.”

In a society that values Filial Piety, Patriarchy is the norm. Those who practice the customs and habits thereof, and do so regularly and very well, are regarded as better, higher quality people of refined class, whereas behaviors and individuals that dishonor and disregard father are seen as ‘low class’ in a colloquial sense.

Within this cultural context, a woman must excel in Filial Piety to be seriously considered as a potential pastor’s wife. Chinese / Taiwanese Pastors select wives from this pool of eligibles.

As to Surfdumb’s question about Taiwanese pastors’ wives influence, the simple answer is that these pastor’s wives are under intense pressure to lay low and not dishonor, disrupt, distract, or interfere with their husbands’ ministries.  Most pastors are high-status and rather influential men who make above average wages, and thus, most pastors’ wives don’t want to rock the boat.  So they usually do NOT get involved with their husbands’ work in the church at all, for fear of causing any kind of trouble.  The Taiwanese pastor’s wives that I’ve known personally don’t even engage in any kind of women’s ministries.  They make an appearance at church for the Sunday service, and that’s it.  They spend most of their time at home raising a large number of children.  It is not uncommon for them to have 3 to 6 children, with some adopted.

That, IMO, is how it is supposed to be.

I’ll cover more historical details about the development of Christianity in China and Taiwan in a separate essay for readers who are interested.

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