Howie Kahn writes a fun and funny piece on his friendship with a married couple. He knew her before she got married, and he grew to be a close friend with him. Kahn was the ring-bearer, of sorts, for their wedding. They all got along wonderfully. But he felt like a third wheel. Oddly, his relationship with them came to replace his own romantic efforts:
We had a good thing going, a completely heartening domestic routine. Our dinners and talks took up entire nights. Cory would often fall asleep in the middle of the conversation, and I'd exit quietly, feeling satisfied, loved.
It didn't take long for me to stop dating entirely. It seemed pointless, since I already had a part in a very solid marriage.
Through his humor, Kahn is raising an intriguing question here: can friendships provide the social relationships necessary for the realization of Confucian Humanity (something tells me this question did not cross Kahn's mind!), and what happens when friendship runs up against other forms of ritualized moral performance, like marriage?
The short answer to the first half of the question is: yes, friendships can form the basis for enacting Confucian Humanity in the world. When asked by Adept Lu what his "greatest ambition" was, Confucius replied:
“To comfort the old, to trust my friends, and to cherish the young.” (5.25).
Knowing that everything Confucius said and did was aimed toward Humanity, we can safely assume that these things were central to his idea of how to approach Humanity in his everyday activities. There is no mention of marriage in this. Comforting the old can obviously imply parents, but it may be more than that: respecting elders more generally. Cherishing the young could indicate raising children, but it could also include nurturing youth other than your own. And trusting friends is right there in the thick of it.
Should we guess that Confucius is putting these in some sort of order of importance: that we should first comfort the old, then trust friends, and then cherish the young? Maybe - he certainly did emphasize taking care of parents. But it is equally plausible that these three things are all roughly equivalent as media for performing Humanity.
So, whatever his qualms, Kahn was doing the right thing by finding love and sustenance in his friendship. And the pain he felt when his friends announced that they were moving to another city, was genuine and meaningful (and his account is funny, too: "Leaving? Moving? Goodbye? The words all sounded tangled and distant, as if from an Urdu phrase book or a Kelly Clarkson song.")
But he was also right in realizing the his friendship with them should not hinder their marriage to one another. Marriage, in modernized Confucian form, is a publicly stated commitment to enact Humanity with another person for the rest of one's life. It makes that other person the "root" of one's Humanity, the focus of one's personal, and therefore public, morality. Once a marriage commitment is made, you must do right by that person, even if that means limiting your relationships with others, parents included (I know: some will say this last point goes too far, beyond what Confucius intended or would accept. My brief response here is to look at how Mencius talks about the mythical Shun's disobedience to his parents).
So, when his married friends have to move to continue their lives together, Kahn hit a clear limit. He knew there was a limit before this, but was in a sort of active denial. It took their physical move to bring the limitations of friendship home to him.
The moral of the story: friendships with married people will have an inherent limit regarding how far they can serve as the foundation for performing Humanity for a single person, like Kahn. But friendships with unmarried people can become a focus for living the good, Confucian life. Kahn doesn't have to worry about getting married, he just has to continue to do right by his friends.
Comments