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OF THE "FIVE RELATIONSHIPS" in Confucianism, the five bonds that men in Chinese society were to observe and promote, it was the fifth, friendship, that was unique. The others, those that bound father and son, ruler and minister, husband and wife, older and younger brother, were overtly concerned with the maintenance of China as a guojia, literally a "state-family"-a state modeled on the principles of family organization.1 They denoted hierarchical, obligatory bonds of mutual devotion that together formed the web of Confucian social relationships that was to provide the source of parallel devotions to family and state. Sons, in the traditional formulation, learned to be capable ministers by turning their devotion to their parents into loyalty to the emperor.2 The state in turn was modeled on the family, with the emperor's management of his own family serving as the basis for his running of the state. Friendship was different. It was neither a family bond nor a state bond, and therefore lay outside the web of parallel devotions that bound these together. Moreover, it was voluntary. One was obliged to serve one's family (and preserve it by producing offspring) and obliged to serve a virtuous ruler, but there was no requirement that one make friends.3 Finally, friendship was the one bond that could |
