There’s a phrase in the Judgements of hexagrams 31 and 44, along with 4, line 2: ‘taking a woman’. Its usual interpretation is ‘taking to wife’, though it’s the same word used to mean ‘take by force’ or ‘capture an animal’. What are we to make of the phrase? And does it mean something different in readings for men and women? And what have translators and commentators made of it?
Wilhelm, of course, was uninhibited in assuming that the oracle was meant exclusively for men. So the protagonist of Hexagram 4, line 2 ‘has the inner superiority and strength that enable him to tolerate with kindliness the shortcomings of human folly. The same attitude is owed to women as the weaker sex. One must understand them and give them recognition in a spirit of chivalrous consideration.’
‘One’ – the only reader Wilhelm conceives of – is, of course, male. The reading is almost refreshingly straightforward. And after all, the original intended reader and user of the oracle may well have been male: it’s hard to see how it can be otherwise, if ‘taking a woman’ is synonymous with ‘starting a relationship’. (This is something I really want to ask Margaret Pearson about in Saturday’s webinar.) Nowadays, translators have to allow for the possibility of women taking an interest, and then things get altogether more awkward.
Stephen Karcher’s maybe the most imaginative and original of modern translators, and the least bound by the Neo-Confucian tradition. With Hexagram 31, he asserts that ‘the woman and the yin are keys to the situation.’ And with hexagram 44, which advises against ‘taking the woman’, he adopts Margaret Pearson’s idea that this is a strong woman who should not be casually ‘taken’ on her way to the King:
‘Coupling. The Royal Bride. The Strong Woman.
Do not try to grasp this woman! She goes to the King.’
Who or what ‘she’ is in divination is another matter: she might be a storm, or a threatening new idea, or a rising tide of female strength within an individual. Can we possibly interpret something like this in the same way for women and men?
Carol Anthony can and does: hers is a unisex oracle. Of course she is a special case, in that she’s not interested in translating the original, but in conveying what she feels it ought to have said. (In this she’s at an opposite extreme to someone like RJ Lynn, who is resolved to express with scrupulous accuracy what the text meant in the time of Wang Bi, whether we like that world view or not.) So for her, the reference to women in 4.2 is just ‘incorrect’. And in Hexagrams 31 and 44, the woman disappears altogether. Hexagram 31: ‘If one is firm and correct in taking the mate offered, it brings good fortune.’ And hexagram 44: ‘Coming to meet. The influence is powerful.’ In a rather strange move, she adopts the Neo-Confucian interpretation that ‘an incorrect element is seeking union’ – an idea which only arose at all in reaction to the presence of a ‘strong woman’ – and then de-sexes it.
And yet, could this gender-neutral Yijing be the most useful for divination? Hexagram 31 is about the power of a new influence – new love, new inspiration – making itself felt. Hexagram 44 is about the arrival of something powerful, uncontrollable, potentially disturbing. These are basic principles I’d start from in building an interpretation for either sex. It’s simple and convenient to read ‘taking a woman’ as synonymous with ‘marriage’ (or in Hexagram 44, something rather less formal), and this as a metaphor for many kinds of relationship. But I also think it’s an inadequate response, to edit ‘the woman’ out of these hexagrams – whoever or whatever she might be.
I know this post is all questions and not a great many answers :?.
I’m storing them up to ask Margaret in the webinar on Saturday (yes, you can buy your ticket for it here :D) and really looking forward to hearing what she has to say.
The title of hexagram 44 is frequently shied away from, to the detriment of its understanding. Gou means “fucking”. With plain talking, this is not such a difficult hexagram to understand, the judgment offers straightforward advice: “fuck her but don’t marry her.”
Given that any man alive today understands what that means, and what kind of woman is being referred to, why beat about the bush when it comes to sexual attitudes of men towards women in ancient China?
I have written about the sexual and marriage-omen content of this hexagram elsewhere.
“Wu yong qu nu” in the judgment of hexagram 44 also occurs in the third line of hexagram 4. It is interesting the light that sparsely repeated phrases cast on each other.
As for the idea that the woman in hexagram 44 is a “royal bride”, I see nothing to warrant such an interpretation.
My view (from http://itcn.nl/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=207&Itemid=3):
勿用å–女 also occurs in the Judgment of 44. It says there that the woman is zhuang 壯. Zhuang 壯 means ‘strong, powerful’, but earlier it also stood for the age of 30 years (漢語大å—å…¸; p. 428 ) . In the Li Ji 禮記 we read: “人生åå¹´æ›°å¹¼å¸ï¼ŒäºŒåæ—¥å¼±å† ï¼Œä¸‰å曰壯，有室.” “In a human life the ago from 10 years on is called ‘studying child’, from 20 years ‘young (but) with hat’ (=adult HM), from 30 years zhuang 壯, this is ‘marry’.” An man was expected to marry when he was about thirty, a woman when she was about twenty or preferably sooner. A woman who was zhuang 壯 was too old to ‘take’, to marry.
Steve, I used to think the name of 44 meant that, before looking at Margaret’s article in Oracle – that, and LiSe’s site.
Note to self: ask about zhuang on Saturday. Given that the Li Ji is talking about men in this passage, was the word used in the same meaning for women?
The QUALITY of 44 is sourced in a sense of becoming one (heaven, blending) operating in a context of sharing time with another/others (wind, binding).
We can refine these terms to read as singleminded cultivation. This is competitive but still ‘soft’ and as such allows for senses of persuading, seducing (the time factor in wind).
In a sexual context this is different to sharing space with another (the more common association of a relationship – lake) – here it is intense, singleminded, where the focus, the fun, is more on the seducing than on what follows. (and so associations of spider to the fly – or female spider to male – leave quick or you are dinner).
All of the heaven/lake topped hexagrams with yin bases cultivate the overall sense of enticement – be it competitive (44,06,33,12) or cooperative (28,47,31,45).
In the PAIR of 28/44, 44 is conditional, particular in focus, when compared to the unconditional elements of 28.
In the binary ordering 44 is the most male of the yin-based hexagrams and, being on the border of yin/yang is also interpretable as the attracting to the ‘dark side’ – so we can map-in the local focus of a ‘powerful’ female etc. doing the seducing as well.
As such, I can see both genders getting something out of this as universals, but local context will bias interpretations.
Just to add a point in the context of universals – in the binary sequence octet of wind-based hexagrams (46, 18, 48, 57, 32, 50, 28, 44) 44 is the exaggerated, the fully actualised form of 46 – where 46 is about ‘getting (a little) more entangled’ and 44 is the fullest expression of that ‘entanglement’ process.
The pairings for this octet of ‘low energy’ form to ‘high energy form’ relations are:
46 – 44
18 – 28
48 – 50
57 – 32
These need to be fleshed-out in analysis of gender differences. IOW 46 is just as interested in getting ‘entangled’ as 44 is but is not so ‘heavy’ about it etc.
Oh – and dont forget the basic architecture of 44 is described by analogy to 43 – what I label as ‘seeding’, ‘spreading the word’.
For reasons best known to itself, the blog is rejecting Steve’s latest comment. I will try to post it myself from the admin side.
Here’s what he wrote:
Yes, Ma Xia is right. Gou does mean sexual intercourse.
For a refreshing Daoist point of view on Hexagram 44, “A highly sexed female is to be avoided at all cost since the male’s sexual energy will be exhausted quickly and can lead to an early death.†That is according to my ‘coconut’ Daoist friend.
Hexagram 44 Gou comes immediately after Hexagram 1 Qian in the Piqua (twelve monthly hexagrams) sequence and it depicts the entrance of a yin line replacing the first yang line of Qian; therefore a warning in the judgment relating to this line.
The image of a bold girl who lightly surrenders herself does not speak well of her (similar to the second line of Hexagram 4) as compared to the girl depicted in Hexagram 31 Hsien / Influence where through mutual attraction the strong man takes a position inferior to that of the weak girl and shows consideration for her. Remember Gou talks about sexual intercourse whereas Hsien talks about courtship (and restrain on seduction). Therefore the favorable judgment in 31, ‘To take a maiden to wife brings good fortune’.
A further comment on Hexagram 4 line 2. The line also depicts the firm son taking over the household from the compliant master of the household (Book III). Therefore consideration has to be given to women in the household (Book I) just like his father did, as the Chinese like to have the whole family or extended family living under one roof then and now.
RE: 44,
I think when the two people meet they
are chosen to make a change. That is
why they meet, why they are not to unite yet or to try to
take possession of the person.
After they both change then they are
ready for a marriage. Both people are
required to change.
The meeting of such energy charges the
person so each can undertake the problems of
major change.
Then the person begins with #3 and 4.
Then the person will receive #10.
Nelson
Allen picks up on the Bonding(Lake,Mountain)/Binding(Wind,Thunder) differences with the focus on a intercouse vs courtship. In 31 the bottom trigram is mountain, in the lower position this reflects self-restraint, blocking, stopping – the focus being on a bond (share space with another) that is repeated in the upper position with the other bond trigram – lake (here in the form of intensity in expression, top position).
IOW 31 is a ‘pure bonding’ hexagram. expansive bonding in a contractive bonding context and as such more favouring of courtship (no consideration of time, all about sharing space) than intercourse (there IS a consideration about time).
31 thus reads ‘with/from self-restraint comes intensity in expression’. The 31/33 PAIR reflect a focus on enticement – cooperative, unconditional (31) or competitive, conditional (33).
The sharing of time with another allows for the break-up to be ‘clean’ – no carrying-on after the event. OTOH the sharing of space with another is hard to break-up without leaving some residue of some form. In mountain there is an association to sadness, grief (lower position) but to discernment in upper, where we exploit the grief, the loss, to use it for quality control (a lost love can be used to filter future events)
Note that the binding trigrams – wind and thunder – have a general association to a lack of trust, wind in ‘another’, thunder in ‘self’ – just as, at the opposite ends of the yin-based and yang-based sequences we have absolute trust – 02 in another/others, 01 in self.
The two threads of yin and yang reflect issues of trust with 44 focusing on a lack of trust in another/others.
The categories from 02 to 44 show a path of increasing betrayal by others. the path from 01 to 24 is path of increasing betrayal by self.
For 31 the focus is on having experienced ‘slight’ betrayals in the past, so some ‘wooing’ is needed to get-back the trust. As we move into water so the barriers go up, rejection is the issue, ‘us vs them’. Keep going into the realm of wind and cultivation is required to get trust (there is an initial anticipation of wrong doing that can be turned into anticipation of right doing – all reflected in the general qualities of wind-based trigrams).
SO we have:
Earth – total trust in another
Mountain – had some bad experiences so ‘wooing’ is needed.
Water – a ‘cut’ is made, the boundaries set – rejection is the issue.
Lake – no immediate trust at all. There is an anticipation of wrong-doing.
Thunder – no trust in self
Fire – a little trust develops (focus on acceptance)
Lake – confidence but a lot of ‘showbiz’ – still not totally trusting of self.
Heaven – absolute faith in self.
All of these qualities are hard-coded in all members of the species. LOCAL context will then add ‘biases’, genderise etc.
Does anyone know if Margaret Pearson’s “Oracle” article is available anywhere online? I would love to read something she has written. And this is a very interesting topic!
I don’t think it’s online anywhere, but she did send me a version – I’ll email it to you.
The rise of the inferior element; a bold girl who lightly surrenders herself; and the inferior man; all represent the yin line that replaces the first yang line of the Qian hexagram (which comprises of six yang lines).
If this yin line is not checked in time, then more yin lines could follow and eventually all the six yang lines will be replaced by yin lines consequently changing Qian into Kun. This would be in line with the Piqua (twelve monthly hexagrams) sequence. As the next hexagram after Gou will be 33 Tun / Retreat where the first two lines are yin lines and the remaining four yang lines are forced to beat a retreat.
In my earlier post, one has used the bold girl example to tie up the relationships between Hexagram 44 with line three (corrected) of Hexagram 4 which differs from the girl depicted in Hexagram 31. Under different circumstances, the image of the inferior element or an inferior man can be used too.
The hexagram also depicts the meeting between a strong and central assistant (second line) and a strong, central, and correct ruler (fifth line). A great flowering results, and the inferior element (first line) below can do no harm. Thus this is an important time, the time of the meeting of the light and the dark. (Book III [W/B])
The importance of the timing in the meeting between the light and the dark could allude to inner alchemy practice.
Staying within the tradition of line correspondences, yin=woman, for the moment… why is it such a disaster for yang to change to yin? Is the objective for everything to become yang and stick that way forever?
It matters where the change from yang to yin takes place. In 44 the foundation is getting weak. That threatens the whole building. Ever played Jenga? (http://www.hasbro.com/jenga/). One tip: never mess with the foundation…..
Best,
Harmen.
I dreamed about #30 and then I asked
what does “auspicious to gather the female cattle” mean,
found in the discussion under #30 –
and the answer is #23 – which to me means
that it is auspicious for the broken lines to
supplement the solid lines.
To me that is what is happening with regard to
#44.
Positive change can be created.
Nelson
That’s a very interesting answer. It gives me the idea that gathering female cattle is auspicious because it opens up space for new possibilities. (The cows have ‘inner space’ to make baby cows 🙂 ) I think that’s also what is so alarming about the broken line entering in 44: an opening for something new, but something that could be anything.