VOLUME III, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 8, SECTION 2
The Rites of Zhou Write It Into Law
The last section saw, on the oracle bone of the Shang, the barest look of that position. This section walks one step down. This step does not walk toward the crueler, it walks toward the more refined. And the refined, exactly, is the layer that matters most.
The Zhou did a thing the Shang did not
The slave of the Shang was held directly by the king. The king said you are a slave, and you were a slave. The king would use you at a sacrifice, and you went up on the altar.
There was one thing missing in it. No written article.
By the Zhou, the written article was there. In the Rites of Zhou is set down a fairly fine ranking of slaves, called the five bond-classes.
The bond of crime, the bond of the southern captive, the bond of the eastern captive, the bond of two more borders. By the difference of where they came from, they were parted into five grades. The bond of crime were made slaves as a punishment for an offense. The other four were war captives from different regions.
Every kind of bond had its set duty, its set treatment, its set officer in charge.
Mark those two words, set down. Here a thing appears that the Shang did not have. A register.
And an officer was set over it as well
The Rites of Zhou set up an office too, called the manager of the condemned, to see to this matter. The article reads. For those made slaves, the men are entered into the bond of crime, the women are sent to the pounding of grain. This is from the Rites of Zhou, in the Offices of Autumn.
Say it plain. A person made a slave, if a man, is entered into the bond of crime and set to hard labor, if a woman, is sent off to pound rice.
Take these dozen-odd characters and look at them one character at a time.
They are calm. They are orderly. They read like a rule of office procedure, like a public document. Not one character in them is fierce, not one character is vicious.
They only take a person’s whole life, sort it into a kind, and file it into a drawer.
The man, into this column. The woman, into that column.
Where the weight of this step lies
Now the layer that matters most in this section. Listen slowly.
The Shang was the receiving side holding the slave directly. The Zhou was the receiving side holding the slave through law.
The law says this person is a slave, and he is a slave. The law says he goes to pound rice, and he goes to pound rice.
This is wei’s first evolution.
See what it evolved. In the Shang, that line it is only right that I take more had to be held up, one time after another, by the will of a king. Change the king, let the temper change, and the thing might change.
By the Zhou, it no longer had to lean on anyone’s will. It was already written into the rites and the law. The rites and law say so, and so it is.
Hold this line fast. That line it is only right that I take more no longer needs arguing through every time.
It has become an institution. An institution does not tire. An institution does not lose its temper, does not run on feeling, needs no one to hold it up. It turns on its own.
Why this step is, instead, the harder to recognize
Set two pictures side by side.
The Shang king points at a crowd of Qiang and says, drag them off to sacrifice to heaven. This scene is ugly, and anyone can tell what it is.
The manager of the condemned opens the register and, following the article, says, the men into the bond of crime, the women off to pound the rice. This scene, what does it look like.
It looks like office work. It looks like order. It looks like a civilization with law, with rule, with everything set neat in its place.
This is that line, wei the more refined the harder to recognize, come down to the ground for the first time in earnest.
When it is bare, it is ugly, but it is honest. You see that position at one glance. Once it turns refined, it is decent, it comes furnished with reasons and grounds, and yet what it does is the same one thing.
Mark this. This section is not out to say the Zhou was worse than the Shang. The Zhou was far more civilized than the Shang, this is true. With law, a person no longer had to watch the king’s face day by day, this is progress, and on this the volume is not vague.
But the volume has to see the other thing at the same time. Progress and refinement are, more often than not, the same one thing. And that refined layer is exactly where wei most loves to hide.
But this skin grew other things too
Here the other end has to be held, or the talk goes lopsided.
Go back to the line, wei is double edged.
The same set of the Rites of Zhou, the same hand that wrote the articles, wrote the five bond-classes, and wrote other things too.
It wrote the rule of not crossing the farming season. It wrote the rule that in a lean year the granary should be opened. It wrote the rule that the widowed and orphaned and alone should have someone to keep them. It wrote a whole set of the thing that lets a great society turn, how the fields are divided, how the tax is gathered, how the officer is to serve, how a matter is to be done.
The Duke of Zhou shaped the rites and the music, and what Confucius held in mind his whole life without letting go was this one set. Confucius said, how rich, how adorned it is, I follow the Zhou.
One same hand. It filed a slave’s whole life into a drawer, and it also stood up the frame of a whole civilization.
This volume does not curse the Rites of Zhou. To curse the Rites of Zhou is to curse the whole of civilization down. This volume does one thing only. Set these two faces before the eye at the same time.
This move is still in use today
Now turn this step into today’s look.
Look at a contract.
It is printed very handsomely. The type is neat, the clauses are clear, article this, clause that, laid out one after another. It is calm, it is orderly, not one character in it is fierce.
Article seventeen. The borrower shall repay principal and interest before the fifth of each month, and on default a charge of five per thousand a day is added.
With that line from the Rites of Zhou, it is the one same tone.
It does not say you go pound the rice. It says, the borrower shall, before the fifth of each month.
It does not say you are a slave. It says, the borrower.
Think back to the man in the first chapter of this semester who signed a thirty year mortgage. He signed it in high spirits, he stood his friends a dinner. That contract was printed so decent, the clauses so clear, both sides signed their names, both willing, both glad.
The law says he is a borrower, and he is a borrower. The law says he repays before the fifth of each month, and he repays before the fifth of each month.
Ask this. How far is this from the register the manager of the condemned opened.
Three thousand years. And that position has not moved by one fen.
What this section set up, and the turn to the next
This section stood up three things.
The first. What the Zhou did was to move that position out of a person’s will and into the written article. The Shang leaned on the king, the Zhou leaned on law. This is wei’s first evolution.
The second. From here on that line it is only right that I take more no longer needs arguing over again. An institution does not tire, an institution turns on its own.
The third. The refined is exactly the layer hardest to recognize. Bare, it is ugly but honest. Turned decent, it does the same one thing, and you no longer recognize it. That handsomely printed contract of today, and the register of the manager of the condemned, are written by the one same hand.
Then where can it walk to next. The Zhou wrote the person into law. The Han wrote the person into the market. By that step, a person is not only property, he is property that can be moved along. He has a price, he has a going rate, he can be bought, he can be sold, he can be pledged, he can be handed to a son.
Sima Qian set this thing down alongside the raising of horses, the tilling of fields, the lending at interest.
The next section, the market of the Han, the person becomes property that can be moved along.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
SECTION 3. The Market of the Han, the Person Becomes Property That Can Be Moved Along