jiaxun 家訓, family instructions

Jiaxun 家訓 "family instructions" is a particular type of educational text. It served as a private document, written by a family head to instruct future generations. Family instructions were usually written by males for males (and females), but occasionally also by females for females. The most famous text of the "female" genre is Ban Zhao's 班昭 (c. 45-c. 117 CE) Nüjie 女誡. One of the oldest surviving jiaxun texts is Yan Zhitui's 顏之推 (531-589) Yanshi jiaxun 顏氏家訓. Written in a special mode is Zhu Xi's 朱熹 (1130-1200) Jiali 家禮, which focuses on ritual matters and is composed according to the five types of rites (wuli 五禮), namely auspicious (capping and wedding, sacrifices), inauspicious (funerals), congratulatory, hosting, and military rites (none of the latter). It is thus similar to older Confucian texts on rituals, as for instance, various chapters of the ritual Classics Liji 禮記 and Yili 儀禮.

The usual jiaxun texts are written in a less stringent pattern. Instructions to sons and grandsons are seen in the oldest surviving books of China, mainly the Classic Shangshu 尚書 "Book of Documents", where kings admonish their crown prince (chapters Kanggao 康誥, Shaogao 召誥, Wuyi 無逸 or Jun Shi 君奭). Dong Seqi's 董色起 (late 17th cent.) Shangshu jiaxun 尚書家訓 is an example of how statements in the Shangshu were interpreted in the context of and used for the purpose of "family instructions".

The oldest surviving specialised texts of the jiaxun genre are Yan Zhitui's Yanzi jiaxun and Emperor Taizong's 唐太宗 (626-649) Difan 帝範. Yan Zhitui, experiencing times of trouble, warned his sons that fortune cannot be relied on, and therefore urged them to learn filial piety, honest words, modesty, to bring moral order into the house, follow the way of the ancient sages, and to make oneself a name in this way. Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty mirrored the negative example of Emperor Yang 隋煬帝 (r. 604-617) of the short-lived Sui dynasty 隋 (581-618) in order to make his sons acquire the right, virtuous way befitting for a ruler (zheng shen xiu de 正身修德), and not fall for arrogance and profligacy.

Yan's book became a model for the many Song-period 宋 (960-1279) family instructions like Yuan Cai's 袁采 (d. 1195) Yuanshi shifan 袁氏世範, Fan Zhongyan's 范仲淹 (989-1052) Yizhuang guiju 義莊規矩, Sima Guang's 司馬光 (1019-1086) Jiafan 家範 and Jiayi 家儀, Ye Mengde's 葉夢得 (1077-1148) Shilin jiaxun 石林家訓, Lu You's 陸游 (1125-1210) Fangweng jiaxun 放翁家訓, Zhu Xi's Jiaxun. The Ming period 明 (1368-1644) saw also the compilation of family traditions, such as Zheng Taihe's 鄭太和 (1602-1673) Zhengshi guifan 鄭氏規範, Ms Wen Yijie's 溫以介 (Wen Huang 溫璜, 1585-1645) "maternal instructions" Wenshi muxun 溫氏母訓, or the preface (xu 序) of Shengxue xinfa 聖學心法, written by Emperor Chengzu 明成祖 (r. 1402-1424). Texts from the Qing period 清 (1644-1911) are Zhu Bolu's 朱伯廬 (1617-1688) famous primer Zhijia geyan 治家格言, imperial instructions written by the Kangxi 康熙帝 (r. 1661-1722) and Yongzheng 雍正帝 (r. 1722-1735) emperors (Shangyu shiliu tiao 上諭十六條, Tingxun geyan 庭訓格言, Shengyu guangxun 聖諭廣訓), or Zeng Guofan's 曾國藩 (1811-1872) instructive letter to his sons, Jiaozishu 教子書. To a certain extent, Emperor Taizu's 明太祖 (r. 1368-1398) house law Zuxun 祖訓 from the early Ming era must also be counted among the family instructions.

Private instructions were typically referred to as jiashu 家書, jiagui 家規, yixun 遺訓, or zufa 族法. The basic tenets of family instructions were not only directed towards the next generation, but also provided requests to parents. They were, for instance, obliged to love all their children equally. Parents served as models to their children, and thus displayed not just authority to their own children, but also respect to all elderly and to friends.

Education began in early childhood (taijiao 胎教). In this respect, parents served as examples for their children. The goal was to educate children to effectively serve the wider kinship, society at large, and also the government. To achieve this, virtues such as filiality, loyalty, sincerity, modesty, benignity, and reputation, along with the preservation of social order, were of great importance. For instance, the belief that males held a higher status than females (nan zun nü bei 男尊女卑) and the strict obedience of sons to their fathers were emphasised. Ultimately, maintaining the internal peace of a family was a primary aim of family instruction. This principle was early expressed in the Classic Daxue 大學, where a "settled family" (qi jia 齊家) is viewed as the foundation of a well-governed state (zhi guo 治國).