Female Junzi Nuzi - Women's Four Books - Female Four Books
(CC0) Landscapes in the styles of ancient masters — modifications by Larry Neal Gowdy
Copyright ©2023 - May 17, 2023
What would a female junzi be like? As previously mentioned in Female Four Books (Confucian)- aka The Four Books for Women - 女四書, some modern feminists are loudly demanding that they be given favoritism along with a 'diploma' that 'certifies' the obnoxious females to be female junzies. The feminists' claims are, of course, laughably absurd, but, the topic does raise questions of what a female junzi might have actually been like in the ancient China region. Further, another question follows: what would a female junzi be like today?
The following is a muse of comparing known male junzi qualities to what might have existed amongst the era's females, and to then compare the conclusions to what is known.
As repeatedly written within Confucian texts, there are six general natures of a junzi: [1] A calm, level, mature voice, [2] emotionally centered, [3] constantly thinking, [4] being fair of judgments, [5] valuing inner qualities, and [6] filial piety.
Within Lessons for Women, Ban Zhao [Pan Chao, ca. 45-116] (as translated by Nancy Lee Swann in 1932) Ban Zhao gave five categories of what she deemed to be proper behavior for ladies: [1] humility, [2] husband and wife ("the Way of husband and wife is intimately connected with Yin and Yang"), [3] respect and caution, [4] womanly qualifications (womanly virtue, womanly words, womanly bearing, and womanly work), [5] and implicit obedience.
Now, if a junzi has specific inner qualities, then what would he find to be of quality in a woman? Obviously, the junzi would favor similar qualities as his own: calm voice, emotionally stable, intelligent, fairness, a valuing of other people's inner qualities, and heart-felt-caring.
What would a junzi likely find to be repulsive? Within today's common female population, several behaviors would immediately eliminate a junzi's interest in a woman: tattoos, wiggling of one's backside as animals do when mating, walking with a sway (body language suggesting an animal inner nature), loud-mouthed (i.e. feminists), forwardness (high opinion of oneself, no modesty nor humbleness), no respect for other people, no caution of speech nor of behavior, colored makeup (deceit of appearance, only concerned of outside appearances while not concerned of inner qualities), is not intelligent enough to adequately clothe oneself (i.e. pouring oneself into spandex), and not able to calmly discuss topics. (A female junzi would find similar qualities in a man to be repulsive (especially the makeup!).)
Actually, as what is commonly presented on television and throughout the Internet, it would be very rare for any individual today to meet the junzi ideals.
A rough draft translation of a portion of the second section of 誡女 Female Lessons:
"man wife it way-dao take-part(3 star constellation) equal-match yin yang
open-logical-all-communicate attain spirit bright-understanding
trust sky-heaven earth it vast-great righteousness-morality
people relationship it great knot {also}"
The quote of "yin yang" is accurate of intention and of what is real within the laws of Nature: the ingredients of each individual's do influence each other. If both the husband's and wife's ingredients are harmonious, then the ingredients will create a new higher quality product. (Parallel are "Though a man might tame his mind, it is the woman who births his heart." and Alo and De Beauty: "...attribute then becomes the nascent of boundless creativity. ...Though a man may tame his own mind, it is the woman who births his heart...")
A junzi is smart enough to know that marriage to a vulgar female could not result in a happy marriage, and that the marriage's negative yin of ingredients could not create a positive yang.
Ban Zhao's use of "great knot" is also very correct. Two harmonious ingredients, combine into a knot that cannot be separated. Oxygen and hydrogen by themselves; no life. Oxygen and hydrogen harmonizing together; water, life spawns. Add the ingredient of too much heat or cold, and water will not occur. The ingredients, and the ingredients' attributes, dictate what is possible.
The common Confucian custom of a lady bowing her head is an extremely important topic, but, since it is so important, then it will not be discussed here. For the moment, it is enough to state that when done sincerely, the body language has a specific meaning, and it would be interpreted favorably by a junzi. Unfortunately, bowing of the head became a custom, of people bowing while with the belief that their deceitful outward behaviors could hide negative inward natures.
Useful of noting is that some modern feminists believe that they can be taught in schools how to bow their heads, fold their hands, artificially speak quietly, and that somehow their fake behavior makes them a female junzi. The feminists' behavior is not merely repulsive, it also proves the feminists to be vacant of brilliance.
Nevertheless, the fake following of 'middle-way' customs is precisely what did occur: throughout Asia, men and women deceitfully expressed outward body behaviors while truly believing that the fake behavior made them equal to junzies. Western philosophers do similarly when classifying a behavior with outward terms, while never speaking of the inner natures that caused the outward effect. But that is the common behavior of xiaoren (tiny people).
Raising One's Right Eyebrow
But now, what if there actually did exist men and women who naturally outwardly expressed junzi-like behaviors in the ancient China region? What if the few junzies and nuzies were mimicked within customs? If so, then that would help to explain how some of the customs were born, but, it would simultaneously infer that real junzies and nuzies did indeed exist in ancient Asia. Thoughts of the Yellow Emperor era arises, of men and ladies perhaps more commonly having quality inner natures and quality outward behaviors. Could it be true? And if so, then does that not tell us that humanity is devolving?
Self-chosen self-effort of self-participation is a prerequisite for self-improvement: no 'walking on foot prints' is able to improve anyone. Rationally, the less self-effort expended, the less developed a tribe becomes. The old Abrahamic verse appears to be relative: "I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving devotion to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments." (Exodus 20:5-6). People believe in science and religion, but still no known person has been concerned for their lineage, else they would devote themselves to becoming quality individuals so that their descendants could also attain higher qualities. It appears that the people of today only think of themselves, and the greater harm will be witnessed in their descendants.
Imre Soos had excellent ideas about the nature of a species conforming to its environment; the less demanding of the environment, the less intelligent becomes the species:
"The old system either continues on the evolutionary path of least effort, fitting into a suitable ecology-niche, or - if it is destructive to the Natural Order - follows a directed involutionary trend towards the development of a self-destructive character - lethal gene - leading to ultimate extinction. This lemming syndrome is the product of the mind..."" (The Rational Evolution of the Specie, ©1987-2006 by Imre von Soos)
Quality individuals — junzies — exert self-effort, and their lineage is prone to intellectually 'evolve'. Xiaoren (tiny people) exert the least effort possible, and their lineage is prone to further deteriorate of intelligence and inner qualities. Parallel is that the more leisure that exists within modern cultures, the less able are the citizens to self-think. The result is not devolution, it is merely decay leading to self-destruction.
Through film of movies and television programming, it is observable that the common human nature has deteriorated over the past hundred years, most dramatically so during the past twenty years. Old photographs show circuses where people had to pay money to see the tattooed lady, the bearded lady, and the fat lady, but today people get to see them for free at Wal-Mart. Each generation continues to change, and always downhill.
Junzies and nuzies may have once been relatively common, but today there is no known reference to their population percentiles. The point where this is leading: if male junzies were known twenty-five-hundred years ago, then there is a high probability that female junzies also existed. Females have never been forbidden to be nuzies as what today's feminists claim. The absence of nuzies, is a self-chosen choice.
Sum
Asia is not the only region of the world to have had junzi-like people, but the ancient China region did have the advantage of prolonged wars and discomforts. The enduring of a difficult environment, does have the advantage of creating the ingredients that are able to enable an individual to self-strive to overcome the difficulties. The act of self-effort to overcome a bad thing, creates a good inner thing that otherwise could never exist.
Modern society's aberrant behavior is not a disadvantage, it is an opportunity to achieve what previous generations could not achieve. In a perfect world, appreciation could never be learned because all good things would already exist. Learning appreciation is a strong ingredient that harmonizes with other quality ingredients, self-creating a new self.
It is everyone's self-choice, to self-strive to self-exert the self-effort to achieve inner quality, or to be lazy.