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The correct performance of proper decorum also extends into behaving properly according to one's role, or place, and properly according to hierarchical relationships with others. Thus, another of the key concepts expressed in the Analects is that of the five relationships: ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and between friends. All other relationships were taken to be modeled on one of these. Four of the five relationships are unequal, and hierarchical, but all are reciprocal: the ruler has obligations to his subjects, just as they have to him; the father has obligations to his sons, and the husband to his wife. These ideals also meant that rulers, peasants, artisans, merchants, and so forth each had their requisite roles to play in society, and that high or low one should perform one's role correctly and to the fullest, in order for all of society to function harmoniously and prosperously.
The correct performance of proper decorum also extends into behaving properly according to one's role, or place, and properly according to hierarchical relationships with others. Thus, another of the key concepts expressed in the Analects is that of the five relationships: ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and between friends. All other relationships were taken to be modeled on one of these. Four of the five relationships are unequal, and hierarchical, but all are reciprocal: the ruler has obligations to his subjects, just as they have to him; the father has obligations to his sons, and the husband to his wife. These ideals also meant that rulers, peasants, artisans, merchants, and so forth each had their requisite roles to play in society, and that high or low one should perform one's role correctly and to the fullest, in order for all of society to function harmoniously and prosperously.
==Confucianism Today==
Since the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Confucianism (along with a misguided application of the term "feudalism") has for many in China become a catch-all for undesirable and oppressive practices of the past. Political leaders of the time denounced Confucianism as the ideology enforcing and enabling the conservative and patriarchal oppression of the Chinese people, and especially of Chinese women. Mao Zedong claimed he would work to free women from their subordinate position under Confucianism, and state ideology in Communist China since then has, nominally, claimed full and complete gender equality among its ideals.<ref>Schirokauer et al, 61-62.</ref>
While nearly all pre-modern (and modern) cultures around the world were (are) heavily patriarchal in their various ways, and Confucianism is certainly no exception, many have also pointed out that many of the quotes often cited as proof of Confucianism's patriarchal nature are taken out of context, or have been misinterpreted. Besides, even if traditional culture was discriminatory towards women, some argue, still Confucianism is not fundamentally an ideology of oppression, and it can be reinterpreted, reappraised, recovered to still have great value for today.<ref name=schiro62/>
==Confucianism in Japan==
==Confucianism in Japan==