Chinese Philosophies

All throughout history, a main goal for a government is to find a way to create harmony and peace with benefits for everyone. There are many philosophies and ideas on how to achieve that goal, but aside from big government procedures there are roles and ideas that affect how that specific country should be run. Many countries have very similar thoughts on certain issues while they could also disagree with other concept. In classical India and China the roles of gender and the thoughts on family display many similarities, while different philosophies and their religious beliefs influenced their thoughts on social and economic class.

In classical India and China, there were specific roles a person played in society based on what class someone

In India, the Caste System supported families and supported the idea of kinship being together. There were sub-castes called jati that held responsibility for one another. A jati would consist of a few families that stuck together for generations. Similar to India, Chinese philosophies supported families. Confucius taught that one should honor parents and elders. In the Zhou dynasty it was said that a family would only prosper if all members, dead and alive, worked together harmoniously. Chinese children were taught to honor elders; chinese women were subordinate to men because of the prominence of patriarchy. While the women were subordinate to men, Chinese families also had to have a certain respect for the female members. Women in Chinese society did not have much importance in large society but they did receive respect from their families and community. During a brief period in the Qin dynasty, the emperor stated that families were for the weak and one was to deny their family. This little time period is similar to what the Buddhists thought because they believed to achieve Nirvana, one had to deny their families. In China, a big idea that stood in place of a religion was the honoring of ancestors. Because it was thought that a family could only achieve greatness if all members both

Classical China and India were very different in many ways but specifically in the way their community functioned and operated. Because there were a few basic religions in India, their take on certain happenings and events was very different from what the Chinese outlook was. The Indians believed in certain things, such as the Upanishads, that supported the system that their society was founded upon. The foundations the different societies were founded upon deeply impacted the daily lives of the citizens without them being fully aware of what was affecting their