Obedience on the part of the younger to the elder brother is strongly inculcated by Confucianism and Taouism.[159] In ancient China the eldest son of the principal wife held so high a position that even his own father had to mourn for him at his death in the selfsame degree in which the son was bound to mourn for his father;[160] and in some provinces of Japan the elder brother or sister did not even go to the funeral of the younger.[161] In Babylonia the elder brother occupied a privileged position in the family in relation to the younger.[162] In one of the Mandæan writings it is said, “Honour your father and your mother and your elder brother as your father.”[163] According to the sacred books of the Hindus, “the feet of elder brothers and sisters must be embraced, according to the order of their seniority”;[164] “towards a sister of one’s father and of one’s mother, and towards one’s own elder sister, one must behave as towards one’s mother,” though the mother is more venerable than they.[165]
[159] Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, pp. 123, 124, 259. Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 125 sq.
[160] de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 509.
[161] Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 127.
[162] Hommel, op. cit. i. 417 sq.
[163] Brandt, Mandäische Schriften, p. 64.
[164] Âpastamba, i. 4. 14. 9. Cf. ibid. i. 4. 14. 14; Laws of Manu, ii. 225.
[165] Laws of Manu, ii. 133.
Again, in ancient Mexico respect was paid not only by children to their parents but by the young to the old.[166] Among the Yucatans “the young reverenced much the aged.”[167] In China persons of the lowest class who have attained to an unusual age have not infrequently been distinguished by the Emperor,[168] and even criminals with grey hairs are treated with regard.[169] “Respect for elders,” says Mencius, “is the working of righteousness”;[170] and it is said in Thâi Shang that the good man “will respect the old and cherish the young.”[171] A Japanese proverb runs, “Regard an old man as thy father.”[172] We read in Leviticus, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God.”[173] Veneration for the aged is emphatically inculcated by Islam.[174] In the sacred books of India it is represented as a virtue.[175] Herodotus states that the Egyptians resembled the Lacedæmonians in the reverence the young men paid to their elders.[176] Plato says in his ‘Laws’ that everybody ought to consider that the elder has the precedence of the younger in honour, both among the gods as also among men who would live in security and happiness; wherefore it is a foolish thing and hateful to the gods to see an elder man assaulted by a younger in the city. Everybody ought to regard a person who is twenty years older than himself, whether male or female, as his father or mother, and to abstain from laying hands on any such person “out of reverence to the gods who preside over birth.”[177] Regard for old age lies behind such words as presbyter and the Anglo-Saxon ealdormonn; and all travellers among the Southern Slavs have noticed their extraordinary respect for old people.[178]
[166] Clavigero, op. cit. i. 8l. Cf. ibid. i. 332.