Your books and vegetables, fish and swine,
Ancestral rites, early rising, housecleaning, neighborliness —
At all times to mention and practice these
Form eight good matters.
The teachings of geomancers, fortune-tellers, physicians, The incantations of [Buddhist] priests and magicians And the long entertainment of guests — Constitute six vexatious things.
For the honorable Sing-kong was easily angered if geomancers, fortune-tellers, physicians, priests or magicians entered the house, and he was also angered if relatives, friends or guests from a distance stayed long. If his eight good practices and six vexatious things are accepted in our family generation after generation as one of the perpetual lessons, even though our descendants be ever so stupid they will at any rate have a slight restraining law." Those who regard Tsêng merely as an exponent of the views of bygone days are mistaken. They will find that he breaks from traditionalism, at any rate in regard to the place that women have in the family life. To be sure he shares the orthodox view that women must engage in the household duties of spinning, sewing, and cooking. While he was in Peking he wrote home on one occasion to his grandfather lamenting the fact that his own wife was too far away to take her place in serving the elders of the household. In another letter he administered reproof to his married sisters because they did not rise early and wait on their mothers-in-law, but on the contrary lay abed and were served.[1] Writing to his eldest son on the occasion of his marriage, he tells him that when his bride comes into her new home she must be instructed to show diligence in weaving and sewing, to go into the kitchen and prepare food with her own hands,
- ↑ Home Letters, January 20, 1843.
