cius focused on devising a system of ethics that all morally
upstanding persons were to live by. While much of Confu-
cianism specifi es social rituals to be performed during cer-
tain times or on certain occasions (for example, the period of
mourning to be observed aft er the death of a parent), the phi-
losophy is rooted in broader principles, with attitudes such as
righteousness and empathy highly valued. While Confucian-
ism developed into various schools, particularly aft er Con-
fucius’s death, by the third century b.c.e., fi lial piety, or the
child’s respect for parents, was largely seen as the foremost of
all virtues. During the Han Dynasty, from 202 b.c.e. to 220
c.e., Confucian beliefs were incorporated into the state reli-
gion because rulers looking to maintain widespread cultural
unifi cation found Confucianism’s dictates regarding social
behavior perhaps particularly appealing.
Related to the Confucian ideal of fi lial piety was the do-
mestic worship of ancestors. Even before the time of Con-
fucius, the Chinese people believed that the spirits of the
deceased lingered in the aft erlife and determined the fates
of their descendants. For this reason, the Chinese people
made—and in modern times still make—off erings of food,
drink, and other items to their ancestors, oft en at shrines set
up in their homes. In ancient times royalty and the wealthy
were particular generous toward their ancestor spirits, pre-
senting their gift s in elaborate bronze vessels. A king might
ask his forebears to bestow good fortune not just on himself
but on his subjects as well, such as through the provision of a
good harvest or luck in battle.
In association with ancestor worship, fathers taught
their children to respect ancestors fully and eternally; no
man or woman would want to be ignored as a spirit. Th us,
the young universally complied in serving their parents, and
even the rich performed menial tasks for their parents, such
as patching articles of clothing, rather than delegate those
tasks to servants. Overall, the practice of ancestor worship
and Confucian teachings about the primacy of family largely
determined the extent to which unconditional and oft -dem-
onstrated love has dominated the home lives of the Chinese.
A fi nal prominent characteristic of Chinese domestic life
in ancient times was the subservience of women. While little
evidence exists about precisely how peasants arranged fam-
ily matters, the lives of courtly men and women were oft en
recorded in works of art and writing, such as Admonitions of
the Instructress to the Court Ladies, dating from the fourth
century c.e. Women were obligated to be dutiful, yielding,
reverential, and humble; a precept of the time read, “A hus-
band is Heaven, and Heaven cannot be shirked.” Further,
women were oft en denied education and exposure to the
outside world, limiting their intellectual development and
ensuring their future treatment as inferior. Although the his-
torical origins of the practice are uncertain, Chinese women
historically were literally given to men in arranged marriages
and sent off to live with the husband’s family.
In India the family had similarly sacred importance, as
established by the love-based doctrines of Buddhism and as
solidifi ed by the popularization of Hinduism through the
reign of the Guptas (240–550 c.e.). Many of the values and
traditions of Hinduism, such as dharma, karma, and the
transmigration of souls, were in fact fi rst presented and ad-
vocated by Buddhists. Regardless, the Hindu caste system,
which assigned people to a hierarchy of social categories,
served to cement existing familial practices, for the caste sys-
tem itself was maintained through indoctrination carried out
within individual families.
While founded in love and respect, the institution of the
Indian family, as in many other cultures, was a patriarchal
one from as early as 1000 b.c.e. Within an extended fam-
ily, the words spoken by the eldest males were essentially
law, and these patriarchs were treated almost as gods. As in
China, through arranged marriages a woman was brought to
live with the extended family of her new husband. Within
a family, brothers and cousins alike—both referred to with
the same word, bhai—supported each other in all respects,
sometimes even sharing a wife. Such fraternal unity was re-
inforced throughout Indian history by the moral teachings
found in ancient texts like the Sanskrit epics Mahabharata
and Ramayana.
In accord with the patriarchal tradition, women in an-
cient India were largely relegated to secondary roles. Th e code
known as the Laws of Manu, which was developed probably be-
tween 200 b.c.e. and 200 c.e., legalized the notion that women
were inferior to men, with fathers, husbands, and sons succes-
sively off ering “protection.” If a Hindu husband was himself
wholly immoral, even to the extent of committing adultery,
his wife was nevertheless expected literally to worship him. In
fact, a woman was expected to obey her husband even if he
commanded her to perform acts that would be degrading or
self-destructive. Whether supervised, guarded, or confi ned
outright, women were essentially the possessions of the men
in their family. Further cultural expectations dealt specifi cally
with reproduction and the bearing of children: Child rearing
(along with constant attention to the husband) was specifi cally
termed the obligation of women, and if no children were pro-
duced, the husband was within his rights to fi nd another wife.
Women did retain a greater degree of power in certain
isolated societies in ancient Asia. In South India, in fact, fam-
ilies have long been arranged matrilineally, presumably as
far back as ancient times. Although even less is known about
family structures in ancient Japan, because historical records
developed much later, Chinese travelers wrote that in south-
western Japan in 238 c.e., society was arranged in matriar-
chal fashion. States were then under the rule of sorceresses;
women, in fact, maintained rulership in Japan periodically
until the eighth century c.e.EUROPE
BY AMY HACKNEY BLACKWELL
Archaeological evidence provides relatively little informa-
tion on the specifi c details of family structure in prehistoric452 family: Europe