It's impossible to "only a little woman can't support her", but look at this sentence and combine it with the next sentence: "Be loyal and have no grandchildren (Xun), and you will complain from afar."
This sentence, which has always been regarded by many as Confucius' discrimination against women, is the most controversial.
To understand this sentence, we must understand what Confucius called "women" and "villains".
Mr. Lu Xun once wrote in "About Women's Liberation":
"Confucius said: it is difficult to raise a female villain. If you are near, you are inferior, and if you are far away, you will complain." Put a woman and a villain in the same category, but I don't know if it includes his mother. Later Taoist gentlemen finally respected their mothers on the surface, but even so, women who were mothers in China were despised by all men except their own sons. "
Mr. Lu Xun's criticism here is aimed at the discrimination and oppression against women that existed in the society at that time, and traces this unequal social reality back to Confucius.
Mr. Qian Mu translated this sentence into: Only the maids and servants at home are the most difficult to raise, which is from experience.
Mr. Yang Fengbin believes that a lot of evidence in the literature at that time shows that "women" here refers to all women.
Mr. Sun Qinshan has different explanations. He thinks the "woman" here is one of the daughters, a little girl.
He thinks:
1. As far as Confucius' filial piety is concerned, he demands respect, not just nurturing, so he won't use the disrespectful word "difficult to nurture" for his mother and other elders, otherwise it will be self-contradictory.
2. It conforms to the psychological commonness of Jiao Sheng's daughter, with a wide range of experiences and many examples.
In ancient Chinese, "woman" can refer to both women and daughters.
Mr. Li Zehou has a saying that he understands "women" as all women.
However, he believes that this is not discrimination, but "describes some characteristics of women's personality quite accurately", with the focus on the latter sentence, "If you are near, you feel inferior, but if you are far away, you complain."
Confucius didn't come to the conclusion that a woman had a stick. When he said "difficult to raise", he meant this kind of situation, neither far nor near.
As a woman, to be honest, I really think Confucius summed up this sentence very well. Women's psychology is so difficult to guess, just like the lyrics "Don't guess a girl's mind, you can't guess it."
You see, most women like to dress themselves up. Although many times dressing up beautifully is really to please yourself, many times it is really to attract the attention of the opposite sex. However, if the other person has improper gaze, words and deeds, women will feel greatly violated.
It's really like some people "you get too close to him, he thinks you're doing something, you keep your distance from him, he thinks you're alienated from him."
This kind of psychology is contradictory, just like the "sense of realm" in psychology. This "realm" is really difficult to grasp. Confucius put it very aptly, "Being near makes you feel inferior, while being far away makes you complain".
As for the villain, the villain in Confucius' mouth has never been a villain in the modern sense, that is, a person who is not as noble as a gentleman morally.
Therefore, I don't think this is prejudice against women, but an insight into human wisdom.