At this link is a downloadable long paper defending a speculation on the history of tì 弟/悌.The core thesis is that the virtue term originated as a general virtue term meaning humbly respectful. By Confucius’ time the meaning had narrowed to elder-respect (especially outside the family). Much later it began to be used for being a respectful younger brother.
Since the paper is very long, I’m posting here a précis. I would be happy to discuss any of it with folks who have not looked at the paper (which has a partly linked Table of Contents for dippers). This is the only forum in which I would expect to hear any responses.
Here’s the précis.
The English simile adjectives “brotherly” and “fraternal” mean caring and loyal. They are virtue terms because they are applied to relations among non-brothers, where being brotherlike is a virtue. Brotherlike brothers are unremarkable. Normally these English virtue terms do not suggest that the parties are brothers, nor do they distinctly allude to the idea of being better than ordinary as a brother.
However, in at least one linguistic subcommunity of specialists who want to refer to family role virtues, these English adjectives (and “fraternity” and even “brotherhood”) have been pressed into service to mean being a good brother, perhaps without noticing that this is not the normal meaning of the words. Something similar happened in Warring States China in the decades around 300 BCE.
So far as I know, our earliest records of the term tì 弟/悌 are in seven Odes, where it is certainly not a family role virtue term. I argue that tì in the Odes means being humbly respectful, based on a younger-brother metaphor. Thus it has roughly the same meaning that in later texts is carried by xùn 孫/遜, a virtue term that I imagine may have originated as a similar metaphor.
This reading of the adjective in the Odes fits the contexts better than Waley’s reading, “happy,” or Karlgren’s reading, “pleased” or “pleasant.” It is close to some readings favored by Legge and Couvreur. And it is endorsed by each of the nine relevant pre-Qin or Han discussions of the Odes lines with tì: in the Zuozhuan, Guoyu, Liji, Xunzi, and Hanshi waizhuan.
After the Odes the term next appears in the Analects material.
In Confucius’ usage the meaning has narrowed to respect for one’s elders, a practice portrayed elsewhere as a somewhat ritualized individual and collective practice whose salient arena is outside the family, associated especially with village life. Confucius sees elder-respect as filial piety’s partner virtue (1.6, 13.20).
The same partnership is mentioned (as “孝弟” or “入孝出弟” or in other words) in the Tang Yu zhi dao, the Mozi, the Mencius, the Guoyu and Guanzi, the Liji, the Xunzi, the Huainanzi, and the Yantielun. Sometimes this pair is hyperbolically identified with complete virtue, or said to ground complete virtue, or said to be sufficient to bring peace to the world.
As for the statement with tì attributed to Youzi at Analects 1.2, there is nothing in it to suggest that it means being a respectful younger brother, and there are several reasons to reject that reading.
A naive approach to the Analects, supported by other considerations, suggests that in our readings we should suppose that the statements attributed to Master You were made in the context of shared familiarity with and respect for the terms and ideas attributed in the Analects to Confucius, and not the other way around–or at least that we should give that hypothesis a good try. It suggests that xiàotì at 1.2 referred to the familiar partnership between filial piety in the family and elder-respect outside the family.
This elder-respect reading at 1.2 brings the statement much closer to the philosophy of the Confucius material in the Analects. For the Confucius material thinks elder-respect is a key support for further virtue, and being a good younger brother is not. And the Confucius material thinks public concerns should often trump family concerns, and does not see kinship organization as the model for the state.
Unlike the younger-brother reading at 1.2, the elder-respect reading makes both halves of the root worth mentioning; tì is not just the tail on the pig. A root comprising filial piety and elder-respect would balance kinship loyalty with more impartial public involvement, in a time when powerful clans were a problem. In connection with the term 孝弟, the Liji:Jiyi says that tì as village elder-respect protects the weak, the poor, and the members of small clans, because (as many texts mention) it does not leave anyone out. Elder-respect is not about personal relationships; rather an emblematic exercise is respect for elderly strangers on the road. Accordingly, we can see the “入孝出弟” partnership as resonating with 内/外 and 仁/義, as in the Gaozian remarks at Mencius 6A.
Unlike the elder-respect reading, the younger-brother reading at 1.2 would be problematic for early Confucians, as it puts the root of virtue for leadership out of reach of a substantial proportion of men, including most heads of states and clans, all heads of brothers, and Sage Emperor Shun and King Wen. A traditionalist interested in peace and a job would not have invented or announced the view that having an older brother is essential to virtue for leadership; but by a semantic shift the claim could have leeched into a circulating text or formula.
By the late 300s BCE the term had begun to narrow further, to mean being a respectful younger brother to one’s older brother. If the term tì for the role virtue of a younger brother had arisen directly from the noun dì 弟 for younger brother, it would have been a linguistic anomaly. Other family position nouns didn’t make verbs or adjectives like that.
The Mozi is always clear about when and whether it is talking about elder-respect or the virtue of a younger brother. But each of its four sentences with tì is so constructed that the meaning of the sentence depends not at all on whether that word means general respectfulness, elder-respect, or the virtue of a younger brother.
The Mencius collection has neither of those features. At least half the time, xiàotì in the Mencius refers to filial piety and elder-respect rather than being a good younger brother; but there may also be some waffling as to the nature of filial piety’s partner virtue.
The formulaic pairing of xiào and tì, apparently antedating the idea that the pair is the root of complete virtue, seems originally to have reflected an interest in balancing men’s lineage ties with their more public involvement. In the centuries after Youzi’s time, the claim that the pair is the root of virtue or of some virtue was restated and interpreted in various ways, reflecting various associations with the terms and various philosophical and factual considerations. The ambiguity of tì and related terms such as such as xiōngdì 兄弟 may have encouraged people not to decide on a definite conception of the root in the face of considerations and revered texts pushing in different directions. Hence the intelligible association of elder-respect with yì 義as against narrow rén 仁 may have generated a less intelligible association of being a respectful younger brother with yì 義as against narrow rén 仁.
