Culminate—Marry—Arrive
|or| Marrying a Young Woman

The energy of a developing situation has exhausted itself. Now is the time to stop and celebrate your accomplishments even if your achievement is only a small one. Moving forward at this time will only bring misfortune and bad luck. Expect delays, but don’t worry about them. (Bright-Fey 137)

 

In marrying a young woman, an expedition bodes ill. Nothing is gained.

Yang 1: Marrying a young woman as a junior wife—the lame can walk, it bodes well to go.

Yang 2: The squint-eyed see. It is beneficial to be chaste as a hermit.

Yin 3: A young woman marrying with anticipation turns back from marriage to be a junior wife.

Yang 4: A young woman puts off the date of marriage, delaying it, for there is a time.

Yin 5: The emperor marries off his younger sister. The wife’s dress is not as fine as that of the ladies-in-waiting. The moon is almost full. Auspicious.

Yin 6: The woman receives a chest with no contents, the man slaughters a goat with no blood. Nothing is gained. (Cleary 337-349)

 Gradual Progression culminates in an arrival at an end, and this end is a kind of consummation—a becoming one. Thus does Marrying a Young Woman follow Gradual Progress as a metaphor for the array of attitudes, proper and improper, which one may take at the termination of a stage of slow and steady development.

Before we begin, some cultural context should be explained: the term “junior wife” is used in Cleary’s translation, though a better word would be “concubine.” In Chinese society at the time, it was common for nobility and wealthy merchants to take on young women from the lower social classes into their harems. The children of these concubines would be reared as the wife’s and husband’s children, with the concubine being relegated to a servant’s position. This was seen by many lower class women as preferable to marrying down economically and/or in status. Though ideally the woman would want to be the wife and not the concubine, being a concubine with a comfortable life, easy chores, and stability and safety for oneself and one’s children was still a form of success.

With the aforementioned out of the way, we are better able to understand the marriage metaphor described by the I Ching. Indeed, without it, it would be difficult to reconcile the Taoist and Confucian interpretations.

The Taoist summation renders the figurative in abstract categoricals: from a lowly starting place, one cultivates himself and remains true to his duties and honor; this results is advancement over time, and while the progress is not monumental, things to improve compared to how they were before. This is how most people accord with the Way, by taking small individual steps day by day by day. This Path requires not only fortitude and faith, but also gratitude. One should look back frequently and appreciate the length of journey thus far made—as opposed to fixating forward on the desired destination. Looking only ever upward makes one feel lowly no matter how high he has risen. This is a wellspring of resentment, envy, and hatred. Instead, one is better served by taking joy in accordance with the Lake trigram, leaving the great movements for those above who accord externally with the trigram for Thunder.

The Confucian interpretation, as usual, digs into more granular detail. Using the image of a young woman seeking marriage, we are first warned against temptation to rush headlong and get in over our heads.

The first Yang suggests instead that it is preferrable to settle. “It bodes well to go” in so far as the young woman becomes a concubine instead of vying for the position of wife. In this case, “The lame can walk” meaning that, despite her low position as a concubine and being without a correspondent to help her, the woman can continue along the Path if she accepts the slow progress. This is because this woman is strong of will, as represented by Yang in the first position.

Conditions may be suboptimal, but holding to moral principles and doing one’s duty, however lowly, is better than its opposite.

The second Yang is strong of character as the first, and moreover, she rests in a balanced position and has a proper correspondent in the fifth position, that of leadership. However, the fifth Yin is weak. This is likened to an upright and wise young woman enduring serving an unworthy husband. In this situation, they are her eyes squinting, seeing into the future. Being of good character, this woman is able to endure the hardships and lack of progress in the present knowing that, though she could exploit her youth a sexuality to gain favor with the husband, it is better to be chaste and patient. She will have her time to shine—only later.

The third Yin lies at the extreme of you and pleasure. Unlike the first two Yangs representing women of moral character, the third Yin is weakness and giving-in to the temptations of desire. In this case, the woman wants the position of wife for herself, but she is unruly and uncultivated. She is not worthy of that which she so desires, and so she bitterly become a concubine in order that she not die a lonely, childless old-maid. Though her situation is not all that different from the two Yangs below, she will feel it as a defeat and punishment because of her attitude.

One should not pine after that which he has not earned, for it spoils that which is within one’s grasp. It is better to be thankful for the blesses at one’s disposal.

Then there are those worthy women capable of waiting and also achieving their ends. These are those represented by the fourth Yang. They are at the bottom right now, but are above those in the lower strata and can rely on their Yang energies to rise upward. They will marry, and successfully, because of their strong characters in spite of the period of stagnation. They are, after all, in the body of Thunder, representing movement and initiation.

The fifth Yin affirms the fourth Yang. The fourth having no correspondent is what makes this happen. The Yang-Yin association naturally pairs upward between the two—but the fifth Yin does have a proper correspondent to the second Yang. That is why the weak Yin husband in the position of leadership gives the fourth Yang away in marriage. She attains the high honor of becoming a wife, though the emperor himself comes to love and reward his concubine in the Second Yang. Because she endures by way of gratitude, eventually her efforts affect her husband, and she becomes adorned more brilliantly than the sister-wife.

Then there are those who reside outside this paradigm, who do not marry and who do not settle in becoming concubines. They retain their beauty, youth, and fertility to themselves, but it is an empty shell, a “chest with no contents”. Instead of enjoying what they could have achieved, they let it turn to dust because they wanted more than that of which they were worthy. In this situation, men’s sacrifices become vanities, likewise substance-less.

The purpose of Gradual Progress was a consummation and celebration of slow and steady growth. Those unwilling to stop and take pleasure in their progress thus far are those who truly find their final terminus—no spouse, no children, no legacy—nothing but bitterness and then nothing.

I Ching; The Book of Changes, with commentaries by Cheng Yi, translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambala Library, 2003.

I Ching: The Book of Changes; An authentic Taoist translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2006.