The system of "retaining and supporting relatives" began in the Northern Wei Dynasty and continued until the Qing Dynasty. It is an epitome of ancient China's emphasis on family care and ensuring family care. It was necessary in ancient society to grant amnesty to certain prisoners to ensure family care for the elderly.
Family care for the elderly in the Tang Dynasty was very good. In the Tang Dynasty, a good custom was generally formed in society. Children should not only take care of and support the elderly in daily life, but also ensure that the elderly are happy mentally. This was called "sexual support" at that time. The so-called "sexual support", to put it more simply, means that when you support your parents, you must look kind and cheerful, and you must not make the elderly unhappy. Therefore, whether it is an ordinary family or an official's family, the elderly in the Tang Dynasty not only have material support for their old age, but they can also support their old age with a smile. In the Tang Dynasty, if the daughter-in-law could not "sexually support" her parents-in-law, it could be a reason for the husband to divorce his wife. During the prosperous Tang Dynasty, a minister named Li Xiangxiu divorced his wife because she failed to fulfill her obligation to "sexually support" her parents-in-law.
In the pre-Qin period, the state incorporated the issue of old-age care into the system. "Book of Rites: Kingship" stipulates: "Fifty rice cakes, sixty meats, seventy meals, eighty delicacies, and ninety diets." "Don't leave bed." This means that the 50-year-old man in the family eats refined food; the 60-year-old man eats meat; the 70-year-old man eats more complementary foods; the 80-year-old man eats delicious delicacies; and the 90-year-old man needs to serve food in front of the bed. Although this set of dietary regulations seems very unscientific in modern times, in an era of material poverty, the best delicacies were provided to the elderly in the family to enjoy, reflecting the beautiful concept of "filial piety" as the basis of "loyalty" and the rulers ruling the world with filial piety.
In addition, regarding the policy of exempting and exempting corvee, "Book of Rites": "If a person is eighty years old, his family will not be engaged in politics. If a person is ninety years old, his family will not be engaged in politics. If a person is disabled and has no support, one person will not be engaged in politics. "This means that if there are elderly people in the family who are 80 or 90 years old, their children and grandchildren can reduce their corvee accordingly. If an elder is sick and needs someone to take care of him, one of his children and grandchildren may not do corvee labor.
During the Song Dynasty, Chen Zhi, the magistrate of Xinghua County in Taizhou, wrote the "Letter for Elderly Care". Chen Zhi was one of the best health experts in ancient times. He prescribed "prescriptions" on how to take care of the elderly in terms of food treatment, medicine, and nutrition, so that filial sons could follow them. During the Yuan Dynasty, Zou Xuan, the "respectful old man" and the general manager of Zhongdu, added the "New Book on Providing Elderly Care for Relatives" to the "New Book on Providing Elderly Care for Relatives". These two books have become classic works on filial piety for the elderly, health care and medical treatment in ancient times.
In addition to theoretical works such as "The Book of Filial Piety" and "The Book of Filial Care in the Elderly", ancient times also paid attention to collecting stories of filial sons and vigorously publicizing them in society. Liu Xiang, a classic scholar of the Western Han Dynasty, compiled "The Biography of Filial Sons", a Chinese Buddhist classic There are also "Twenty-Four Filial Piety", the Southern Song Dynasty painter Zhao Zigu created "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" with calligraphy and painting, Yuan Dynasty Guo Jujing compiled "Twenty-Four Filial Piety", Qing Dynasty Zhang Zhidong expanded "Hundred Filial Piety Illustrations", and "Diary Stories Twenty-Four Filial Piety", "Female Filial Piety" Books advising filial piety such as "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" and "Twenty-Four Filial Piety for Men and Women" are popular in society, especially "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" compiled by Guo Jujing has a profound influence. Under the influence of these role models of filial piety, there were many filial sons in ancient times. The hero Qin Qiong of the Sui and Tang Dynasties was known as "a filial mother is like Zhuan Zhu, and making friends is like Mengchang." Almost all ancient heroes are labeled as filial piety.