“It is certainly notable that the Roman legal system arose in a society in which the power of the father (patria potestas) was carried to the extreme.  

Certainly in most cultures the father stands for the strict rules which the child is supposed to obey, while the mother stands for lenience and the principle that ‘circumstances alter cases’. 

On one hand there is the ideal of the closed, static and consistent system of law, on the other, the ‘feminine’ attitudes of flexibility, tact, understanding and inuition. 

How striking is this suggestion in the light of what we have seen ... the Taoists, the whole of whose philosophy and symbolism was permeated by an emphasis on the feminine.”

“Pondering over differing Eastern and Western conceptions of law in relation to the living world, it may occur to us that some difference of emphasis might arise according to whether man has to do chiefly with the animal or with the vegetable world. 

That constrasting attitudes originate, even in the abstract sphere which is the subject of this Section, from pastoral as opposed to agricultural life, has been suggested by André Haudricourt. 

The shepherd and the cowherd beat their beasts, and take up an active attitude of command over their flocks and herds. God is imagined as a ‘Good Shepherd’ leading his flock into satifying pastures. But the shepherd is not far from the legislator over things as well as men.

Maritime usages strongly reinforce this command-psychology, for the safety of all in a ship doubtless required from the earliest times an unquestioning obedience of the many to the experienced man. Hence law in Nature would have been derived from the masteries of shepherds and seacaptains as well as kings.

But when man has to do primarily with plants, as in predominantly agricultural civilisations, the psychological conditions are quite different – often the less he interferes with the growth of his crops the better. Until the harvest he does not touch them. They follow their Tao, which leads to his benefit. 

Is not the conception of wu wei (‘no action contrary to Nature’) deeply congruent with peasant life? In Mencius there is a famous story:

“Let us not be like the man of Sung. There was once a man of Sung, who was grieved that his growing corn was not longer, so he pulled it up. Returning home, looking very stupid, he said to his people, ‘I am tired today. I have been helping the corn to grow long’. His son ran to look at it, and found the corn all withered.”

“These are what I rob, the moisture of the clouds and rain, the fruitfulness of mountain and valley, to grow my grain and ripen my crops, to build my walls and make my houses. 

Fowl and game I rob from the land, fish and turtles from the waters. 

There is nothing that I do not steal. For all these things are Nature’s products; how could I claim them as my private property (yu)?” (Lieh Tzu)

“Li is that whereby Heaven and Earth unite, whereby the sun and the moon are brilliant, whereby the four seasons are ordered, whereby the stars move in their courses, whereby rivers flow, whereby all things prosper, whereby love and hatred are tempered, whereby joy and anger keep their proper place.

It causes the lower orders to obey, and the upper classes to be illustrious; through a myriad changes it prevents going astray.

If one departs from it, one will be destroyed

Is not Li the greatest of all principles?” (Hsün Tzu)