Abstract
Pan Guangdan defined family as the basic unit of society and biology. However, he paid more attention to the biological function and value of family, and regarded family as the origin and biological community of blood. Therefore, Pan Guangdan asked young men and women before marriage to choose an excellent spouse, carefully organize a family and produce excellent children, so as to seek the evolution and development of race. He believes that family is the medium to regulate the individual and society, and also the unit to constitute the nation, so he improved the family lineage through eugenics and pursued the improvement of national quality. Pan Guangdan took Western eugenics as his theoretical weapon and pursued eclectic family reform. In order to achieve a compromise family system, he put forward the following reform direction. First, cohabitation by lineal blood of more than three gene rations composed of parents, couples and unmarried children is not allowed. Second, we should encourage families with excellent heredity and intelligence to match each other or to engage in similar marriages. Third, we should attach importance to women''s role as good wives and good mothers. The responsibility of family management and children''s maintenance should be shifted to mothers. Only women with weak motherhood are allowed to operate economic independence and social undertakings outside. Fourth, early marriage has a good effect on ethnic health. Women should get married around the age of 20, while men should get married around the age of 25. In this way, early marriage will lead to fertility prosperity. Fifth, the purpose of marriage and the standard of marriage choice should not pursue love and romantic life. Pan Guangdan warned that in a society that attaches importance to romantic life, the combination of men and women''s promiscuous love is flourishing day by day, and the marriage is easy to dissolve as a result of the fear of family and childbirth. Sixth, China does not need to implement birth control, but if we want to implement it, we need to set standards for birth selection. The standard is family heredity and intelligence test. In this way, under the impact of western culture, Pan Guangdan, in order to maintain Chinese Confucian culture and the tradition of big family system, used eugenics, a Western knowledge, to pursue a compromise between the old and the new, between the West and China, and his value orientation has always been the protection of tradition or Chinese culture. Therefore, Pan Guangdan, through a compromise family system, was eager to maintain the lineage of the aristocracy and breed their "excellent" lineage and inheritance. He warned that the reproduction of "incompetent" or "genetically" defective elements would lead to the degradation of the nation, and tried to ban their marriage and reproduction. As a result, biological differences become social classes. That is to say, he believes that with the development of biological genetics, social status will change, so he opposes the marriage and childbirth of bad genetic elements. From this point of view, he supports social classicism. He also believes that the race is a biological lineage community, so it is necessary to sacrifice individual happiness and desire for the improvement of national lineage. He thoroughly refuted the individualism and liberalism advocated by the intellectuals of the May 4th Movement and returned the individual to the embrace of the family and the nation. In short, in order to create a "good" race, he carried out a compromise family reform, reorganized the family as a national unit, and completely wiped out the individual. Therefore, we should clearly understand the boundaries of Pan Guangdan''s compromise family reform: Classicism, anti-individualism and anti-feminism, and re-examine the fictionality of his pursuit of national improvement.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
More From: CHUNGGUKSA YONGU (The Journal of Chinese Historical Researches)
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.