Note (return) — Chapter IV · - THE CHINESE ETHICAL SYSTEM IN JAPAN
Reading edition
The Second Relation is that of father and son, thus preceding what we should suppose to be the first of human relations—husband and wife—but the arrangement entirely accords with the Oriental conception that the family, the house, is more important than the individual. In Old Japan the paramount idea in marriage, was not that of love or companionship, or of mutual assistance with children, but was almost wholly that of offspring, and of maintaining the family line.20 The individual might perish but the house must live on.