The Marrying Girl

Thunder above

Lake below

Translated from Richard Wilhelm's German (1924)

Introduction

Above is Zhen, the eldest son; below is Dui, the youngest daughter. The man goes ahead, and the girl follows him joyfully. The hexagram depicts the girl's entry into the man's house. In all, there are four hexagrams that depict the relations between spouses. Hexagram 31, Influence (Courtship), depicts the attraction that a young couple exert on each other. Hexagram 32, Duration, depicts the lasting relations of marriage. Hexagram 53, Development (Gradual Progress), depicts the hesitant and ceremonial proceedings by which a proper marriage is concluded. Finally, this hexagram, The Marrying Girl, shows an older man whom a young girl follows in marriage.

Remark: China is formally monogamous. Every man has only one official wife. This union, which concerns the families more than the two people involved, is contracted with strict observance of the forms. Yet the husband keeps the right to give a hearing to tenderer inclinations of a personal kind as well. Indeed, it is the finest duty of a good wife to help him in this. In this way the relationship becomes a fine and open one. The girl who enters the family by the husband's choice modestly places herself below the woman of the house, as a younger sister. Of course, these are very delicate and sensitive questions, which call for much tact on every side. But when circumstances are favorable, this offers the solution to a problem that European culture has not managed to solve. Naturally, womanhood in China corresponds to the ideal no more than the average marriage in Europe is in harmony with European ideals of marriage.

The Judgment

The marrying girl. Undertakings bring misfortune. Nothing that would be favorable.

A girl who has been taken into the family without being the principal wife must behave with particular caution and reserve. She must not set out of her own accord to displace the woman of the house, since this would mean disorder and would lead to untenable conditions.

This applies to all free relationships between people. While relationships ordered by law have a firm framework of duties and rights, relationships of affection depend for their duration purely on tactful reserve.

This affection, as the principle of relationships, is of the greatest importance in all the affairs of the world, for the continued existence of all nature comes from the union of heaven and earth, and among human beings, likewise, free affection as the principle of union is the beginning and the end.

The Image

Over the lake, thunder rolls: the image of the marrying girl. So the noble one, through the eternity of the end, recognizes what is transient.

Thunder stirs up the waters of the lake, and they follow it in shimmering waves. That is the image of the girl following the man she has chosen. Yet every union between people carries the danger that aberrations creep in and lead to endless misunderstandings and frictions. That is why the end must be kept in mind at all times. When people let themselves drift, they come together and part again as the day decides. If, on the other hand, one keeps a lasting end in view, one will succeed in steering around the reefs that stand in the way of closer relations between people.

The Lines

First line, nine

The marrying girl as a secondary wife. A lame person who can walk. Undertakings bring good fortune.

The princes of antiquity kept a fixed order of rank among the ladies of the palace, who were subordinate to the queen as younger sisters are to the eldest. Often, too, they came from the queen's own family, and she herself brought them to her husband.

What this means is that a young girl who enters a family with the wife's consent is not her equal in outward standing but modestly steps back. But if she knows how to fit into the whole, she gains a position that is entirely satisfying, and she will feel secure in the love of her husband, whose children she bears.

The same meaning holds in the relations of officials. A prince may have a man who is his personal friend and whom he takes into his confidence. Tact requires this man to stand back, outwardly, behind the official minister of state. But though this position leaves him hampered like a lame person, he can still accomplish something through the goodness of his nature.

Second line, nine

A one-eyed person who can see. The persistence of a solitary person is favorable.

Here the situation is that the girl has bound herself to a man who disappoints her. Husband and wife should work together like the two eyes. Here the girl has been left behind alone. The man of her choice has either become unfaithful or died. But the inner light of fidelity does not leave her. Though the other eye has gone dark, she keeps faith even in solitude.

Third line, six

The marrying girl as a slave. She marries as a secondary wife.

A girl of low station who gets no husband may, under certain circumstances, still find a place as a secondary wife.

The situation is that one longs too eagerly for pleasures that cannot be had in the normal way. So one gets into a position that does not quite accord with one's own dignity. The line adds neither a verdict nor a warning but simply lays bare the situation as it is, so that everyone can draw the lesson from it for themselves.

Fourth line, nine

The marrying girl delays the appointed time. A late marriage comes in its own time.

The girl is very good and will not throw herself away, and so she misses the usual time for marriage. But that does no harm. She is rewarded for her purity, and in the end, though late, she does find the husband meant for her.

Fifth line, six

The ruler Yi gives his daughter in marriage. The embroidered robes of the princess were not as splendid as the maidservant's. The moon, almost full, brings good fortune.

The ruler Yi is Tang the Completer. He issued a law that imperial princesses, too, must be subject to their husbands in marriage (compare hexagram 11, Peace, its fifth line). The emperor does not wait for a suitor's proposal but gives his daughter in marriage as he sees fit. That is why it is in order here for the initiative to come from the girl's family.

Here we see a girl of noble birth who marries into modest circumstances and knows how to adapt gracefully to her new situation. She is wholly free of vanity about outward adornment, forgets her rank in marriage and places herself below her husband, just as the moon, almost full, does not stand directly opposite the sun.

Top line, six

The woman holds the basket, but there is no fruit inside. The man stabs the sheep, yet no blood flows. Nothing that would be favorable.

When sacrifice was made to the ancestors, it was the woman's task to offer the fruit in a basket, and the man had to slaughter the sacrificial animal himself. Here the forms are fulfilled only superficially. The woman takes up an empty basket while the man stabs a sheep that has already been slaughtered, merely to keep up the form. But this impious, frivolous attitude promises no happiness for the marriage.

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