University of Virginia Library

Imperial adoption of the Confucian principle that one's relatives
should be favored

Emperor Yüan thus whole-heartedly adopted Confucianism and allowed
its tenets markedly to influence his government, choosing distinguished
Confucian scholars for his highest civil officials;—the army
was, however, kept under the control of his maternal relatives. The day
before he died, Emperor Hsüan had appointed Shih Kao as Commanderin-chief.
This man was a maternal first cousin of Emperor Hsüan's
father and the head of the Shih clan (that of Emperor Hsüan's paternal
grandmother), who had reared Emperor Hsüan. When Shih Kao
retired because of age in 43 B.C., this position was given to Wang Chieh5,
a maternal first cousin of Emperor Hsüan, and after Wang Chieh5's death
in 41 B.C., it was given to Hsü Chia, a paternal first cousin of Emperor
Yüan's mother, who held it until 30 B.C. Thus the control of the
army was given to the clans of Emperor Yüan's great-grandmother,
grandmother, and mother, successively.

This practise of giving high position and great power to the maternal
relatives of the emperor is justified by Confucian teaching. The Book of
History, in its second paragraph, declares that as one of the essential
acts in his rule, Yao (who was admired extravagantly by Confucius
[cf. Analects VIII, xix]) favored his nine sets of relatives. Mencius
declares that the favoring of one's relatives (ch'in-ch'in) constitutes
benevolence (jen) (VI, B, iii, 2). In the Doctrine of the Mean (XX,
13, 14), which probably represents Later Han conceptions, Confucius
is represented as advocating this virtue as fundamental and as saying,
"To exalt their positions, to make their emoluments large, and to share
their likes and dislikes is the way in which to encourage [people in the
virtue of] favoring their relatives."

The Chinese phrase, ch'in-ch'in, may be interpreted "love one's
relatives" as well as "favor one's relatives." An idealist like Tung Chung-shu
might maintain, "A true king continually takes as his ideal the loving
and benefiting of all under Heaven," but this statement must not be
interpreted to mean the equal love of all people. Confucius had set
bounds to the sage's regard for others when he rejected the principle
of love for one's enemies. In practice, the principle of loving one's
relatives and others becomes the loving of one's relatives more than others,
which slips, by imperceptible degrees, into favoring one's relatives.
Probably Mencius, with his high moral ideals, meant only the first of
these interpretations. Thus favoring one's relatives is a cardinal Confucian
virtue.

Successive rebellions had led the Han dynasty to the set practise of
keeping its paternal relatives, the members of the Liu clan, at a distance
from the imperial capital, giving them small kingdoms or marquisates,
but depriving them of any power in the imperial government. Members
of the imperial house and people from kingdoms ruled by members of
the imperial house were not supposed even to hold high office in the
imperial capital or in neighboring commanderies. This rule was, however,
not always enforced. An exception was regularly made for the
Superintendant of the Imperial House, who was always a member of
the imperial house. Membership in the imperial house lapsed after
a certain number of generations (nowhere definitely specified). The
attempted seizure of the throne by the Lü clan after the death of the
Empress Dowager née Lü in 180 B.C. led the next two rulers, who were
not wholeheartedly Confucian, to restrict the powers of their maternal
relatives. Emperor Wu, however, broke with this wise policy. Dynastic
custom had kept the Han emperors from giving governmental power
into the hands of their paternal relatives; consequently the Confucian
virtue of "favoring one's relatives" was turned to be applied specifically
to relatives on the distaff side, especially those of the Empresses Dowager,
of the Empresses, and of favorite concubines. Emperor Wu appointed
the relatives of his favorite women to high position. His most successful
generals, Wei Ch'ing and Ho Ch'ü-ping, were a half-brother and a
nephew, respectively, of his favorite concubine, whom he made his
Empress. Ho Kuang, the man whom he selected to be virtual regent
for his successor, and who actually ruled the country for nineteen years,
was a half-brother of Wei Ch'ing. When Ho Kuang died, Emperor
Hsüan at first pursued the policy of continuing in high office Ho Kuang's
clan and those of Ho Kuang's group who had assisted him in bringing
Emperor Hsüan to the throne. But the rebellion of the Ho clan made
him look to other persons for support. Emperor Hsüan, when young,
had been reared in the family of his maternal grandmother, the Shih
clan; when the disloyalty of the Ho clan was discovered, Emperor Hsüan
of course turned for support to this clan and to his wife's relatives, the
Hsü clan, for their interests were naturally bound up with his own.
The Liu clan, his paternal relatives, were potential rivals for the throne.
Thus the necessity of finding some group in the court whose unswerving
loyalty could be counted upon because their interests were bound up
with those of the occupant of the throne led to the exaltation of the
imperial relatives on the distaff side. Emperor Yüan, under the combined
influence of his father's precedent and of Confucian teaching,

continued this practise of giving the highest positions to his relatives.
Emperor Ch'eng also continued it, and finally, when later a child emperor
had kept one particular clan in power for a long period, this clan,
in the person of Wang Mang, overthrew the dynasty.

The practise of favoring the ruler's maternal relatives and relatives
by marriage has of course sometimes been influential in non-Confucian
lands, often with similar results, so that Confucianism cannot be charged
with initiating such a practise. What Confucianism did in China was
to afford a philosophical and ethical justification for this practise, with
the result that criticism of the practise could be stifled and the practise
could be urged as a duty by interested parties upon rulers who might not
otherwise desire to trust their relatives too much. Thus Confucianism
encouraged nepotism and removed the bulwark afforded by common
sense against the abuse of imperial relationships. The inevitable result
was the eventual downfall of the dynasty. Confucian idealism was thus
the most important contributory factor in the downfall of the Former
Han dynasty as well as that of the Later Han dynasty.