The art of severing relationships (juejiao) in early medieval China.

• Author: Jansen, Thomas
• Position: Report

From Han to Tang there were still friends such as Fan [Shi] and Zhang [Shao], Chen [Zhong] and Lei [Yi], (1) Yuan [Zhen] (779-831) and Bai (Juyi) (772-846) or Liu [Yuxi] (772-843) and Liu [Zongyuan] (773-819). They stayed close to each other through all their life and did not change their heart-and-mind because of life or death, a noble or base [position]. During the [first] century of our dynasty, this practice was still alive. Alas, now it has already died! (2) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. 1. INTRODUCTION

Even if we don't share Hong Mai's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1122-1202) melancholic and idealized view on the period from Han to Tang as the "Golden Age" of friendship, it is probably safe to say that relationships based on other than kinship ties were a strong focus of interest in the intellectual discourse of the period known as early medieval China. (3) Different authors such as Wei Wendi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (r. 220-226) and his "Jiaoyou lun" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("On Friendship"), Cai Yong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (133-192) in his "Zhengjiao lun" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("On the Rectification of Relationships"), (4) Xu Gan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (171-218) in the chapter "Qianjiao" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("On Castigating Networks") of his essay collection entitled Zhonglun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("Disquisitions that Hit the Mark") or, to give a later example, Liu Jun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (462-521) in his "Guang juejiao lun" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("Expanded Treatise on Severing Relations") agree on the fact that the ability "to associate with friends" (jiaoyou [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) or, more generally, "to establish [well-ordered] relations" (jiao [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) was considered exceedingly important by the majority of their contemporaries. (5) Friendship played an important role in a double sense: first as a universal ideal that had, by the late Han, become part and parcel of the philosophical systematization of human relationships; (6) secondly, though no less important, a social practice or skill. For in a society where political and social prominence was increasingly dependent on connections to the court or the participation in webs of patronage, the ability to form "beneficial friendships" (yiyou [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), to use Confucius' own words, were essential for every person hoping to achieve political influence. (7) Thus, in "China as in Europe, webs of patronage that involved royal relatives and high officials were a result." (8) Jia Mi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (d. 300) and his coterie of men known as the "Twenty-four Friends" (9) (ershisi you [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) or the "Eight Friends of [the Prince of] Jingling" (10) (Jingling ba you [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) are just two well-known examples of such webs of patronage. We must suspect, however, that the alleged friendship ties between the members of these groupings were retrospectively constructed rather than real. (11)

Interestingly, while we may observe a strong emphasis on the importance of friendly relations in the period under discussion, we simultaneously come across, for the first time, pieces of literature purposely written to legitimate or actually perform the termination of friendship ties. The two examples that are probably best known are Ji Kang's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (223-263) "Letter to Shan Juyuan (Shan Tao) Severing Our Relationship" and Liu Jun's "Expanded Treatise on Severing Relations." (12) These two and a small number of other pieces contend that, under certain circumstances, it is desirable and legitimate, maybe even necessary, to break off friendship or relationships in general. They propose a point of view that runs counter to an attitude probably shared by the majority of contemporaries and summarized in a statement from Zhang Yin's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (fourth-century) Wenshi zhuan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("Biographies of Men of Letters"): "In the world there is no severing of relationships" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (13) Given the strong Chinese belief in humans as social beings, the deliberate severing of relationships thus betokens an anomaly, a conscious transgression of the rules of a well-ordered society that raises important questions concerning the why and the how.

In what follows, I shall explore several cases in which a person breaks up a friendship/relationship with another person or even with people in general. The basis for my undertaking is a limited number of texts that I, for the purpose of this paper, would like to call the "juejiao texts," that is, "texts on the severing of relations." It is neither my aim to discuss the hallowed ideals of friendship as they were laid down in the works of the early Ru [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] tradition, the Lunyu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Mengzi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], or Li ji [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], to name just a few examples, nor do I primarily intend to reconstruct the discourse on friendship in early medieval China. (14) I will instead focus on a few specific historical cases and what people were actually doing as well as what they were intending when breaking off relationships. The main questions that guide my inquiry are: under what circumstances did people choose to terminate a friendship/relationship? is there a discernible pattern of behavior or rhetorical conventions adapted to this particular situation? what specific aims did the authors of treatises, letters, or poems pursue when writing about juejiao? and how must we read these texts in order to gain a better understanding of "friendship" both as a set of social practices--including practices that lead to its termination--and an institutional constituent of the social and political fabric of early medieval China? (15)

In order to get to the practices, however, one has to start from texts--the writing and reading of texts is also a kind of social practice, after all. Let me therefore start by introducing the sources on the basis of which I intend to discuss my topic.

2. SOURCES ON THE SEVERING OF FRIENDSHIP

   While there is ample material on friendship in the form of treatises, anecdotes, or personal remarks, (16) we have only a handful of texts (essays, anecdotes, and poems) explicitly dealing with the severing of relations. (17) Sweeping generalizations are therefore hard to make. The reluctance to write about broken relationships that particularly characterizes the literature before the Later Han (25-220) might at least partly be explained by the dictum that "the gentlemen of antiquity, having terminated a relationship, did not speak ill [of former friends]" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (18)

   A rare example where the severing of friendship is explicitly demanded and therefore seen as legitimate is provided in an anecdote in the book Mengzi (late 4th century B.C.E.). Mencius describes the following hypothetical situation to King Xuan of Qi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]:

   "Among your subordinates, Royal Highness, there is a man who entrusts his wife and children to the care of a friend while he himself is going on a journey to [the state of] Chu. Upon his return he finds that his wife and children have been subjected to hunger and starvation. How should he deal with his friend?" The King answered: "He should abandon him." The conversation then continues:

   "How should a chief judge who is unable to control his subordinate judges be dealt with?" "He should be removed from office." [Mengzi] asked: "What ought to be done, if the whole country is [in a state of] disorder?" The King turned round to look at his entourage and spoke about other things." (19) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. The termination of friendship just as the removal from office of the chief judge and the (implied) loss of the mandate to rule in the case of the King are considered necessary results of personal deficiencies and moral failure, for which each of them--the friend, the judge, and the King--is to be held personally responsible and can be justly punished.

   Loss of friendship not as punishment for personal wrongdoing, but as a voluntary act motivated by utmost moral depravity is mentioned in the book Liezi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (20) The text relates that Gongsun Mu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], the younger brother of the chancellor of Zheng [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Zichan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (d. 522 B.C.E.), terminated his relations both to his relatives and friends, for he was so infatuated with beautiful women that he did not leave his inner chambers for months. (21) While the text proposes a close link between moral failure and the weakening of friendship ties--a life of debauchery inevitably damages the proper relations to both friends and kin--it unmistakably treats the story of Gongsun Mu as an individual case. That is, the text makes no attempt to explain the break-up of friendship ties as a sign of a moral decline of society at large. On the contrary, Gongsun Mu's failing stands in sharp contrast to the description of Zheng as a well-governed state. The shift towards universalization of both the friendship ideal and its unattainability becomes for the first time evident in Han-dynasty texts, most succinctly in the small preface to the ode "Gufeng" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("East Wind") in the Classic of Odes (Shijing [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]): "Under Heaven customs were degenerate, and the Way of friendship was cut off" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (22) The feeling pervasive in the Han that (true) friendship is unattainable in a time of disorder and moral decline is, to my knowledge, absent in Zhou literature. It may be due to their new significance as an index to the general state of society...