Brotherly Love Is the Best Filial Piety for the Parents

Yi Seong-gye established Joseon Dynasty in Korea and became the first king called King Taejo. His fifth son, Yi Bang-won, was very ambitious. As one of his half-brothers became the crown prince, Yi Bang-won got furious and killed the half-brother and another half-brother as well. Then King Taejo’s second son sat on the throne, but this time there was a conflict between the brothers born of the same mother—Yi Bang-won and Yi Banggan, the fourth son. The former one is called the First Strife of Princes, and the latter is called the Second Strife of Princes.

The tragedy from family discord, which took place at the beginning of Joseon Dynasty, often occurs in this age, too. Among the top forty groups by the standard of the assets, eighteen of them have experienced conflicts over the management right. The strife of brothers of a rich family has become common now. It is not only rich families that have this problem. Ordinary families are no exceptions. A younger brother who was unhappy about the unfair property distribution pointed a gun at his older brother and his wife. Sometimes, the funeral of a parent turned into a fight as his children tried to take more inheritance.

The quarrel between siblings even brings them to the court, and in South Korea the number of cases where siblings sue each other for the matter of inheritance after the death of their parents has increased dramatically from 158 cases in 2005 to 811 cases in 2014. For some of those cases, the amount of inheritance isn’t that high. It’s nonsense that siblings go to the court for the money matter, but they just don’t want to lose any money.

As it is hard to even take care of one’s own family because of the economic crisis, there are many cases where siblings become estranged from each other, or even cut off their relationship because of the income level, academic gap, or the matter of supporting the parents. Some people think the expression, “brotherly love,” is something outdated and the world is heartless nowadays. But love growing cold in the family is a serious problem.

Blood is thicker than water

Siblings grow up together since childhood, and so they have many common memories. As they receive love and concern from the same parents, sometimes they become competitors; and in case there is a big age gap, the older siblings play the role of the parents for the younger siblings. Growing up, they share emotions, too: envy, jealousy, hatred, love, affection, disappointment, appreciation, satisfaction, and so on. Parents give love to all their children unconditionally, but siblings are in the equal relationship and learn communication skills and sociality from each other, which they cannot experience from the relationship with their parents.

When the parents leave the world, only siblings remain. If we say that life is about eighty years and divide it into three stages, there is no spouse in the beginning stage, and there are no parents in the last stage. However, siblings share the lifetime together. Other relationships continue while we belong to a certain group such as school or company, and some relationships are formed or cut off according to hobbies, personality, and matters of interest. However, the relationship between siblings lasts during the whole lifetime. Although sometimes they argue with each other, they are the ones that stay the longest time together in one’s lifetime and their relationship is as special as the relationship between the parents and their children.

That is why the sense of fellowship among siblings is different than other relationship. Their sense of fellowship doesn’t break even if the period of time living separately is longer than living together. We can understand this when we see dispersed families reunited. Those brothers and sisters were dispersed in a war when they were only little kids, but they don’t forget each other until they become old and meet again. It is because they share the same flesh and blood. Blood is thicker than water. Even if they are different from head to toe, they were born to love each other just because they have the same parents.

Respect and manners are a must for a good brotherly relationship

A research shows that there is a higher possibility that one suffers from depression in his adulthood if his relationship with his siblings isn’t good. This can be interpreted in many ways: discord among siblings might be the sign of the early stage of depression, and a good relationship with the siblings can help build up a good relationship with other people, too. Anyway, having a good relationship with siblings is good for mental health.

Siblings share good memories and bad memories as well. If you want to keep a good relationship with your siblings, you need to forget all the disappointing and bad memories. After having grown up, siblings need to respect each other and keep manners even for small matters. In childhood, both the older and the younger argue and fight each other, but the situation changes when they all grow up and have their own families. Before, they were your older/younger brothers/sisters, but they are now the head of a household, someone’s wife, or someone’s parents after they get married.

Some siblings often get into an argument when they get together during national holidays. If you don’t want to argue with your siblings, it is best to avoid topics that can stimulate others’ emotions such as political or social issues, each other’s family situation, and the children’s educational status, and to avoid boasting about yourself. When you talk, you need to be considerate of the listener, and try to forgive and understand each other instead of nitpicking someone’s mistake or error. When the younger sibling respects and follows his older sibling, thinking, ‘No younger sibling is better than the older sibling,’ and the older sibling cares and loves the younger sibling with the mind of a parent, they can always keep a good relationship.

Brotherly love and filial piety are inseparable

There is a story about the two brothers who threw away a gold nugget. The two close brothers happened to find a gold nugget in the street. After that, they were getting greedy and feeling hatred toward each other because of the gold nugget. So they threw it away with no hesitation, because they valued each other more. It is truly a heart-moving story. The ones who must be most proud of these two brothers must be their parents.

Although a child lives a successful life, if he acts like an enemy with his siblings, his parents must always be filled with anxiety. However, although a child has financial difficulties, if he lives in harmony with his siblings, his parents will be happier than any other parents. Buying the parents nice clothes and good food is an act of filial piety, but the best filial piety is to have brotherly love for the siblings.

Brotherly love and filial piety can never be separated from one another. Yi I, a prominent scholar in Joseon Dynasty of Korea, said, “Not living in harmony with the siblings is no different from not loving the parents. If one truly loves his parents, how can he not love the child whom his parents bore?”

The Bible says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 Jn 4:20–21). It shows that love for the spiritual Parents is regarded as the same as love for brothers. The Bible also sings the beauty of brotherly love: “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” (Ps 133:1).

However, more and more people choose gold rather than brotherly love these days. To become less close with your sibling than with a stranger is the worst thing one could do to the parents. If you teach your children not to fight but live in harmony with each other while you are not doing that, can such a lesson be genuine? If the parents show their children how they keep a good relationship with their siblings, who are aunts or uncles to their children, the children will learn that they need to do the same.

According to a research conducted by a research team from McMaster University in Canada, when different species of plants were planted together in one pot, they rooted down wildly to take as much water and nutrition as possible, but when the plants were of the same kind, they yielded to each other, adjusting the length of their roots. Plants look weak and incapable that they get wet when it rains and waver and fall the way the wind blows. Amazingly, however, they recognize the plants of their own family.

Adam’s firstborn Cain ended up murdering his younger brother Abel because of jealousy. It was the first murder done to a brother in human history in the record of the Bible. This shows that brotherly love must be restored for the peace of mankind. Brotherly love extends to filial piety, and no one who is good to their parents is bad. Therefore, when brotherly love is restored, it will bring peace to the family and to the whole world.