Honor Thy Parent

"Honor your father and mother (for this is the first commandment with a promise) that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land."

— Ephesians 6:2-3 (quoting Exodus 20:12), The Bible

"Filial piety" is a traditional value which calls for people to show respect, regard, and reverence toward their parents, and more broadly, to other elders or, as the case may be, ancestors. A given work will therefore either show a child (or an adult) displaying such dutiful behavior toward their parents, which could include actively respecting or obeying them, or else will show a parent scolding, rebuking or disciplining said child for an act which the parent perceives as lack of respect toward themselves. Alternatively a third party may call out the child, or even the child themselves will admit to not having been respectful enough to the parent. Just exactly what will constitute this respect, or failure to render it, will be time-, age- and culture-specific.

There's an interesting dichotomy surrounding the parent-child relationship. Parents are supposed to love and care for their kids and support them until they are able to stand on their own two feet. But more often than not, these duties come with strings attached for the child. People are so used to hearing from an early age that they are supposed to "respect" their parents, that it can easily seem to be an unremarkable expectation. Thus, if someone complains that his or her child is disrespectful, people will often sympathize with the parent and assume that there is something wrong with the child. In fact, we don't really know what the parent means by that assertion. While in some cases, the "disrespect" may truly amount to genuine rudeness, in others it may simply be a question of parents resenting reactions that are natural for the child to display when angry or upset (perhaps justifiably or at least understandably), and that would be considered acceptable reactions in an adult. As a simple example, a child disagreeing with a parent may answer in an angry voice, prompting the parent to bark back: "Don't you take that tone of voice with me!" Yet the same parent would likely think nothing of speaking in the same tone, or even a harsher one, in a heated argument with the other parent, or another adult (let alone the tone they might use when they are angry with the child, whether justifiably or not).

Thus, there is an element of doublespeak— and, some would say, hypocrisy— here. In Real Life, everyone is supposed to respect everyone else. When people single out parents for respect, they don't mean merely to treat one's parents decently (which the word means in most other situations), but to act deferentially toward them. The idea is to treat your parents as someone better than yourself and deserving of more respect than you deserve from them. What we are effectively seeing is adults holding children to higher standards of self-control than that they hold themselves and other adults to. In some cases, this expectation of deference may last into the child's adulthood.

On the other hand, one's relationship to one's parents is unique from any other kind of relationship: Friends Are Chosen, Family Aren't, after all. Aside from giving the child life in the first place, parents spend years nurturing, teaching, protecting, and providing for the child in a way nobody else does... or at least, they try to if they're not completely hopeless at the job. A little extra dose of respect or affection for the most significant people in one's family tree is thus certainly in order. That's why Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas, and insulting someone's parents can be fighting words. Characters would also consider it ultimately reprehensible if a villain kills their own parents (or at least one of them.)

Probably the most reasonable course is to see Parents as People and children as people too, having their human flaws and failings but entitled to equal respect.

This trope informs and enables other parent-related tropes, such as Because I Said So, My Way or the Highway, Parental Hypocrisy, or Parental Blamelessness. Someone who specifically insists on this kind of respect from their child is a "Well Done, Dad!" Guy or Knight Templar Parent; a parent who does not care about respect might want to be One of the Kids. In extreme cases, it will be used as an excuse to demand Honor Thy Abuser. Conversely, someone who sees their parent as genuinely in the wrong may resort to Calling the Old Man Out. Naturally, it's easiest to honor Good Parents, more of an effort to respect Amazingly Embarrassing Parents, and downright problematic to honor Abusive Parents.

It may become a plot point when paired with Fantasy-Forbidding Father or Your Tradition Is Not Mine, when a child is torn between their duty to respect their parents' wishes and their desire to Be Yourself. Child Supplants Parent may similarly drive the plot when a child's goal is to get out from their parent's shadow.

An Extremely Protective Child takes honor to the level of physical or emotional defense. Support Your Parents is when someone is expected to provide for their parents financially.

Often figures in an Appeal to Familial Wisdom ("My mama always says..."). Taking it to the next level may be Ancestor Veneration.

A Sub-Trope of Thicker Than Water. Compare The Dutiful Son where a child is devoted to taking care of their parents' needs; contrast Bratty Teenage Daughter, where a teenage girl is whiny, disrespectful and unpleasant toward her parents (or is perceived as such), or Hates Their Parent, which may inform some defiances of this trope (though characters in favor of it will call them out on it). See also Follow in My Footsteps, when a parent expects their child to turn out just like them. Generally found on the lower end of the Sliding Scale of Parent-Shaming in Fiction. The strongest possible aversion is the Self-Made Orphan.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • For all her drunken hedonism, Momoha Bonnouji is a firm believer in paying back what's owed. To this end, she sends as much of her earnings as she can to her parents before she blows it all on gambling and booze. Her parents would actually prefer Momoha not do this and be more independent, and kicked her out of the house to facilitate this; this doesn't stop Momoha.
  • In chapter 157, Hakari honors her mother Hahari with a mother's day gift: She uses Kusuri's body swapping drug to switch places with Kishika, who behaves like an infant when pampered; Hahari, who adores cute things and happily dotes on Kishika in particular, is then essentially given permission to baby Kishika-in-her-daughter's-body to her heart's content. As the scene escalates, the actual Hakari can only cringe in embarrassment as Mei praises her filial piety.

Comic Strips

• Life in Hell: In one 1991 installment, Bongo invokes the trope when faced with his father Binky, whose silhouette is looming over him, having caught him painting an identical mirror-image silhouette of him on the wall, with paint footprints on the floor. In a feeble attempt to get out of trouble, Bongo says: "It's called "Respect Your Elders.""

Fan Works

• The Black Sheep Dog Series: Orion Black's most defining characteristic is his dedication to his family. He is especially insistent on giving his abusive father respect he is due, and encourages his other relatives to do the same for their parents. In The Black Sheep, he tells his wayward cousin Alphard to write to his overprotective mother more often simply because "it was the expected and proper thing to do". When his son Sirius says that Arcturus doesn't deserve Orion's loyalty, Orion replies that the mere fact that the man is his father is all the reason he needs.
  Orion: One doesn't have a reason for loving one's father—one simply does.

Film

• Hi Honey - I'm Dead: Deconstructed in this 1991 FOX Network made-for-TV movie. The main character, Brad Stadler, is a wealthy real estate developer who spends little time with his family and when he does speak to his son Josh, he even bullies him, calling him a "wuss" for under-performing in little league baseball. An accident at a building site leaves Brad's body dead, but he is reincarnated as Arnold Pischkin, a nobody, in order to teach him a lesson in humility and devotion to his loved ones. Brad / Arnold attends his own funeral reception, approaches Josh, and expresses sympathy for the loss of his father. He is taken aback when Josh coldly answers that he knows how he should be feeling. Arnold soon manages to get himself hired as his family's housekeeper. On driving Josh home from a little league game which again didn't go well for him, Arnold again calls his son "You wuss." This time, however, Josh retorts: "You can't talk to me like that!" Arnold is first shocked and his reaction is: "What did you say!?" But Josh won't back down. Arnold has a moment of inspiration and defuses the situation by taking Josh back to the ballpark and giving him one-on-one coaching. While the situation ends well, it is well worth considering the question of why it was necessary for Brad / Arnold to cease to be recognizable as Josh's father for Josh to be able to stand up to his insults.
• House Sitter: After Newton makes a good impression at the party by singing "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral" at his boss' request, the homeless woman who is impersonating Gwen's mother has her own request - that he sing "Roll Out the Barrel." Gwen reacts: "Put a lid on it, will you, Mom?" The fake dad takes advantage of the roles they are playing and rebukes Gwen: "Don't take that tone of voice with your mother. Show some respect."
• Turning Red: Discussed in the intro then Zigzagged in the rest of the movie.
• World Trade Center: When Sgt. John McLoughlin's wife Donna is informed that her police officer husband is trapped somewhere within the site of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks, she is about to leave for somewhere closer to the scene. Donna tells her roughly 12-year-old son to stay put. He reacts with a resolute "No!" and demands to go with her. Donna is taken aback by his defiance, and attempts to make her son comply; however, he won't back down and angrily protests. Finally, Donna reluctantly agrees to take him with her, but you can see that she is still angry at having been so blatantly contradicted by her son. This example shows how shocking an instance of outright defiance by a child can still seem even today to a 21st-century parent, even when the child is under duress caused by the fact that his father is missing in action.

Literature

• In his Classic of Filial Piety, Confucius advocated for xiào, or filial piety. A central tenet of Confucius' ideology is that in order for society to function properly, hierarchies must be strictly observed. An aspect of this is the idea that children are to automatically defer to their parents, even if it would go against the child's interests.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Discussed. Rowley's a big fan of a singer named Joshie, whose motto is, "Respect your parents and follow your dreams." Rowley definitely believes he's right.
• Eugénie Grandet: This novel, set in early 19th-century France, features a particularly self-effacing example of filial respect. The protagonist is a meek and highly religious young woman whose selfish father is obsessed with acquiring wealth. She falls in love with her impoverished cousin Charles and gives him a collection of gold coins that her father had gifted her. Eventually, Eugénie is compelled to admit to her father that she gave her gold away. He freaks out and demands to know who she gave it to, but Eugénie tells him that that is an inviolable secret. This infuriates her father even more and he orders her to remain in her room until she admits the secret. Eugénie resignedly bears her punishment; finally some family friends visit her and her mother, who is deathly ill in large part from the shock of the father's reaction. They suggest Eugénie sue her father for wrongful cruelty and offer to file the lawsuit for her. Eugénie will hear nothing of it, stating that she is bound to obey her father as long as she lives under his roof and that he is only accountable to God for his actions. Her father ends her punishment shortly after, being led to believe that he can have a financial advantage from being in Eugénie's good books. Specifically, when her mother dies, by French law Eugénie is entitled to half of the Grandet estate, due to the community of property regimen that exists between spouses. Her mother is not even buried yet and Eugénie's father asks her to renounce her part in the succession in exchange for an allowance. She accepts to do this without a drop of hesitation and until her father dies five years later, lives with him as if nothing had ever happened; he remains in control of his vast property and is never made to suffer for his poor treatment of his late wife and his daughter.
• Fifth Business: When Dunstan (then "Dunstable") Ramsay, growing up in 1900s small-town Ontario, was thirteen, he took an egg from the kitchen to practice a magic trick. His mother, a Thrifty Scot who actually bothers to count her eggs, demands to know if he thinks she is made of eggs. Being thirteen and all, Dunstable can't resist talking back and answers that this is something she will have to decide for herself. This is something his mother cannot abide. She produces a toy pony whip which she had once confiscated from his brother and which she uses for administering Corporal Punishment. He laughs and she strikes him on the shoulder. He then shouts: "Don't you dare touch me," which makes the mother utterly livid. She chases Dunstable around the kitchen, whipping him until they are both crying, and once she has broken him, she continues beating him and "storming about my impudence, my want of respect for her, of my increasing oddity and intellectual arrogance", until she has had her fill of what would seem to be vengeance, finally shutting herself in her bedroom. When Dunstable's father and brother come home, they side with the mother and Dunstable is compelled to humbly apologize to her on his knees.
• The Grandmother:
  • When the Grandmother was young, her boyfriend Jiří asked her to marry him right after he had allowed himself to be recruited into the Prussian Army. She mentioned that they needed their parents' blessing – and she was away from home at the time, having come to see Jiří on Prussian territory. Jiří's uncle praised her piety and told her not to go back home, lest her parents try to talk her out of staying with Jiří. He said he would stand in place of her parents and that they would give her their blessing afterward. She accepted and when after the wedding she went to see her parents, her mother was very upset that her daughter would be leaving home in order to follow a soldier to a foreign land. However, her father blessed the union, reasoning that the young couple were responsible for their choice and telling his wife that she had also left her parents to marry him.
  • The Grandmother's daughter Johanka, who lives in Vienna, writes her a letter asking for her consent to get married to a man called Jura, who is Croatian. Although the Grandmother is a little disappointed that she has not chosen a Czech, she freely gives her her blessing, recognizing that the two of them have chosen each other, and taking some joy in the fact that he bears her husband's name (Jiří and Jura are both forms of George).
• The History of the Fairchild Family: This didactic Georgian children's novel by Mary Martha Sherwood is built around this trope. Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild's three children are taught that obedience to their parents is essential, not merely for its own sake but chiefly as an instrument of obeying God's will. During the course of the novel, the children's playmate Miss Augusta Noble, daughter of the irreligious Sir Charles and Lady Noble, is shown as not having the value of obedience properly inculcated in her. She ends up being burned to death as a consequence of having played with fire one time too many. As if this were not enough, the local priest laments to Mr. Fairchild after Augusta's funeral that she has not been brought up to have regard for piety nor the duty to obey her parents, and had apparently not been in a state of repentance while dying, implying that she is likely bound for hell! The Fairchild children themselves, in spite of whatever sins they commit during the course of the book, are largely respectful and obedient to their parents, but an incident in the penultimate chapter shows what can happen to them if they are not. Namely, Mr. Fairchild starts teaching Henry, his roughly seven-year-old son, Latin, in preparation for a projected future career as a clergyman. Henry soon finds the first grammar lesson onerous and dawdles over learning it. His father makes several failed attempts to get Henry to attend to the task, eventually flogging him with a small horsewhip. When Henry refuses to learn the lesson even the next day, Mr. Fairchild severely lectures him on how God gives no mark of his fatherly love to obstinate sinners and how while he is a child, he owes obedience to his father, who stands in place of God to him. Mr. Fairchild then orders the entire family and the servants not to talk to Henry, who remains in this state of disgrace for two days and nights, until incited the following day by the pious little Charles Trueman to humble himself on his knees before his father. Mr. Fairchild forgives him, all the while admonishing him to take the punishment he has just suffered as a warning never to rebel against his father.
• The end of each volume of Life's Little Instruction Book asks this of the reader:
  511. Call your mother.
  1028. Call your dad.
  1560. Include your parents in your prayers.
• Pride and Prejudice: In the famous scene where Elizabeth refuses to marry Mr Collins and her mother threatens never to see her again if she doesn't - to which her father responds that he will never see her again if she does, Mrs Bennet does not immediately give up but continues cajoling Elizabeth to change her mind. Finally, when it is clear that Elizabeth is resolute in her refusal, Mrs Bennet rebukes Elizabeth for her choice and maintains that she will indeed never see her again, adding: "I have no pleasure in talking to undutiful children" (while immediately adding that she doesn't have much pleasure in talking to anybody). She does come around after a while, though.
• Elsie Dinsmore takes this to the point of being an Extreme Doormat, despite her father (at least in earlier books in the series) being emotionally distant and abusive. However, she draws the line at obeying her father when he asks her to do something that goes against her religious convictions. The stress of the dilemma causes her to faint and injure herself, which makes her father realize he was being too hard on her.
• The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars, written by Guo Jujing in the late 13th century, contains twenty-four examples of display of filial piety. One extreme example of the stories told in this book: the father of a family that was not able to feed all its members told his wife that they should kill their child, for they could have more children, but could not replace his mother. He then set out to dig a grave for the child, and was rewarded by finding a supply of money in the hole that would enable him to feed the whole family.
  As they serve their fathers, so they serve their mothers, and they love them equally. As they serve their fathers, so they serve their rulers, and they reverence them equally.

Live-Action TV

• Beef: Danny subscribes fully to the philosophy that as the oldest son of an Asian family, he has to look out for his younger brother and provide for his parents in their old age, though this is called out as a rule he unnecessarily beholdens himself to even if it makes him miserable.
• CSI: NY:
  • "Yarhzeit": After Mac returns a family heirloom to a Holocaust survivor, the woman says she plans to light a candle in honor of her relatives who were killed in the camps. She invites Mac to join her, asking if there is anyone he would like to honor as well. There is...
    Mac: [softly] My father.
  • Conversed in "The Real McCoy": During their heart-to-heart about Mr. Ross's abuse of Adam, Mac asks him why he still visits him. Adam replies that the man is his father, but adds that he feels bad about not having any feelings for him, concluding with:
    Adam: [tearing up and voice breaking] You're supposed to honor your parents. What does that say about me as a person?
    Mac: [gently] Looks like you're feeling something now.

Music

• The song "Be Kind to Your Parents" from the musical "Fanny" details why children should respect their parents, humorously explaining how much they have in common.
• 10cc express the sentiment with bleak humor in their song "Fresh Air for My Mama":
  Be gracious to your mother
  When you leave this neighborhood
  The change is gonna do her good.

Mythology and Religion

• The Bible: In the Ten Commandments, the Fourth or Fifth Commandment (depending on the classification) is: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:12).
• Islam holds filial piety in similarly high regard as in Judaism and Christianity. One quote from the The Qur'an states: "Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of contempt,^note A more literal translation is "say not to them (so much as) 'Ugh'"; IE don't even grumble at them nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. (17:23) And, out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say: 'My Lord! Bestow on them your Mercy even as they cherished me in childhood.' (17:24)"
• Some cultures have ancestor worship. These include the Chinese, the Japanese and the Romans.
• The Instructions of Šuruppak son of Ubara-tutu (Sumerian wisdom literature dated to c. 2600 BC) advises, "The instructions of an old man are precious, may you submit to them" and tells sons to treat their father's words like the words of a god.

Theatre

• Various aspects of this trope are treated in a number of Shakespeare's plays:
  • Hamlet: The busybody royal councilor Polonius is the Shakespearean equivalent of a helicopter parent. Shortly before his son Laertes leaves for university, Polonius notices that he and Ophelia have been discussing something, and when the former leaves, nosily asks her just what they were talking about. Ophelia withholds nothing from her father, but lays out in full the rather intimate topic of their conversation, namely the fact that Hamlet has been making advances at her, and she is not sure what to think about them. Polonius responds in a know-it-all and extremely patronizing manner, telling his daughter that he will teach her immature self what to think of it, that Hamlet's vows of love are not genuine and only meant to mask lust for her, and that in the future he would have her not give Hamlet any encouragement at all. Ophelia meekly replies: "I shall obey, my lord." Later, Polonius uses the fact that Hamlet has shown interest in his daughter as a pretext to offer her up to King Claudius as a pawn for spying on Hamlet. In all this, Ophelia shows no signs of asserting herself but blindly follows her father's wishes in all things.^note Of course, theater being what it is, a director can choose to have Ophelia indicate annoyance or dissatisfaction with her father's behavior (ditto for Laertes). She seems to have developed a strong dependence on Polonius; when Hamlet kills the latter, Ophelia goes mad with apparent grief^note Though other interpretations are possible. Namely one (which can co-exist with grief at her father's death, and which is supported by some of the things she says when mad) is that Ophelia had also recently lost her virginity, likely to Hamlet (and perhaps as the result of rape), and that she is pregnant and ends up drowning in a brook.
  • King Lear: This trope very much informs the play's premise, even receiving something of a deconstruction. Lear wishes to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, but before doing so asks them to declare publicly how much they love him. Goneril and Regan, who don't seem to actually care for Lear, oblige him and shower him with flattery. Cordelia, who actually does care for her father, refuses to make an oral exposé of her love, stating rather tactlessly that she loves Lear as much as her duty requires her to. Lear interprets Cordelia's words as coldness, becomes furious, disowns her, and divides the whole kingdom between the two other daughters, with the stipulation that he shall maintain the title of king and that he and his knights will be alternately supported by Goneril and Regan. These, however, find Lear's retinue annoying and both in turn insist that he dismiss some of his knights as a condition of their continued support. Disillusioned, Lear exiles himself into the wild, where he meets "Tom O'Bedlam", actually the young nobleman Edgar disguised as a madman. Lear, who is descending into a fit of madness himself, insists that nothing other than betrayal by his daughters could have made "Tom" so. The latter briefly repeats injunctions of stock wisdom, including "Obey thy parents." Lear is impressed, and considers him a wise philosopher. Ultimately, however, it's Cordelia who rescues Lear, and upon waking up in her care, he is very humble and conciliatory.
  • The Merchant of Venice: Portia is a rich heiress whose deceased father has stipulated that only a man who has passed a test may marry her. When we first see her, she complains to her friend Nerissa that "I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?" It is not clear whether she is purely bound by filial obedience to her father or whether the latter stipulated in his will e.g. that she must respect the result of the test in order to keep her inheritance. Nerissa opines that "Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly but one who shall rightly love." In the end, the test works as it should, with Bassanio, who of all suitors was most pleasing to Portia, choosing the correct leaden casket (she does help him choose by having musicians play/sing him a song that hints to him not to judge by appearances). In a different subplot, the Jew Shylock's daughter Jessica is less reverent toward her own father, having no qualms about eloping with Lorenzo, converting to Christianity for him, and taking off with some of Shylock's wealth, even buying a monkey with a ring her late mother had given her father. But even she shows some requisite piety when preparing to elope: "Alack, what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father's child! / But though I am a daughter to his blood, / I am not to his manners."
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream: Hermia wants to marry Lysander but her father Egeus has engaged her to Demetrius. Egeus petitions Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to enforce a law according to which Hermia must submit to her father or incur the death penalty! Theseus offers Hermia a third option - to become a nun of the goddess Diana, but she rejects this option and Theseus feels compelled to enforce the law, giving Hermia some time to think about it. Hermia and Lysander, however, resolve to flee Athens, and this drives the rest of the plot.
  • Othello: Brabantio is beside himself with anger upon learning that his daughter Desdemona has eloped with Othello, to the point of denial. He hauls Othello before the Duke of Venice and accuses him of enchanting his daughter. On it being made clear that Desdemona was merely enticed by Othello's stories of his exploits in war, Brabantio asks his daughter to whom in the assembled company she most owes obedience, implying that it is to him, her father. Desdemona tactfully replies that she has learned to respect him and remains his daughter, but that as her mother preferred Brabantio over her father, so she now has a responsibility to her husband. Brabantio bitterly resigns himself to his daughter's marriage and tells Desdemona: "For your sake, jewel, / I am glad at soul I have no other child: / For thy escape would teach me tyranny, / To hang clogs on them."
  • Romeo and Juliet: Lord Capulet's enraged reaction at Juliet's resistance to marrying County Paris has strong undertones of shock at being defied by his daughter, who had probably been perfectly obedient to him up until this point; he accuses her of ingratitude and threatens to disown her if she doesn't comply. Shakespeare's source material, Arthur Brooks' Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet plays up Capulet's accusation of breach of filial respect; in the equivalent scene in that work, Capulet lectures Juliet about how she has often heard at his table stories of how the Ancient Romans held obedience to parents in such high regard that they would execute defiant children, rhetorically asking what those ancients would do to Juliet.
  • The Tempest: Prospero is a caring father to his daughter Miranda, but is not above using authoritarian methods to govern her behavior when he thinks it necessary (not surprisingly, given that he also shows a tendency toward enslaving others). He decides to test Ferdinand before blessing his union with Miranda, choosing the method best known to him - treating Ferdinand as a captive. Miranda attempts to come to Ferdinand's defense, but Prospero blocks her with harsh words: "Silence! one word more / Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee." Miranda does eventually try to intercede again, but Prospero simply calls her away, still barking orders: "Come, follow. Speak not for him." In a later scene, we see Ferdinand set at the task of piling up logs, which is meant to test his character. Miranda comes and offers him encouragement and support, but not without expressing guilt at interfacing with him behind Prospero's back: "O my father, I have broke your hest to say so!" and "But I prattle / Something too wildly and my father's precepts / I therein do forget." Fortunately, it was Prospero's plan to unite them all along and he even observes their interaction with satisfaction. Finally, satisfied that Ferdinand has passed the test, he blesses their union.

Video Games

• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: Wolf's adoptive father, Owl, taught him how to become a shinobi, and also instilled unto him the Iron Code. The first rule of the Iron Code is to obey the will of your parent, and the second rule is to obey the will of your master. The first rule is more important than the second. Owl use the Iron Code to command obedience from Wolf so he could use him for his benefit when the time for conquest is right. Obeying his order to betray Kuro sends you towards the Shura ending.

Real Life

• Confucianism, which puts very strong emphasis on this value, has greatly influenced Asian society. Modern Chinese law even codifies some of its precepts: a parent can go to the court and compel their adult children to pay them maintenance, and/or visit them at regular intervals. This is no dead law; people do go to court for this. And the brevity of the law in question means there's nearly no way out of it.^note Art. 26 of the Civil Code: "Adult children have the duty to support, assist, and protect their parents." Art. 1067 of the Civil Code provides a cause of action. Art. 1072 helpfully reminds that the Parent with New Paramour trope is not a defense: "Children's duty to support their parents shall not end with the change of their parents' marital relationship." Yes, you still have to pay maintenance to your Disappeared Dad, or your mom who's convicted of trying to kill you^note There's a case law about the court refusing a petition, from a woman whose adopted father has been convicted of raping her, to be released from having to pay maintenance to him. The reasoning is, she should have petitioned to dissolve the adoption first (which requires an "irrecoverable deterioration of parent-child relationship" such that it's "impossible to live together"); as long as he is legally her father, she needs to pay maintenance to him., should they ask for it.
• Several American colonies had "Stubborn Child Laws" which allowed parents to have rebellious children put to death. In 1646, the Massachusetts Bay Colony adopted a law based on a literal reading of Deuteronomy 21:18-21, laying down that if a man had a stubborn and rebellious son at least 16 years old who would not obey his father and mother or respond to their chastening, that his parents would "lay hold on him and bring him to the Magistrates assembled in Court and testify unto them, that their son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes; such a son shall be put to death." Over the next few decades, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire adopted similar laws. Although death as a penalty was later removed and punishment for disobedient daughters was added, the law was not repealed until 1973.
• There was a case in colonial America where a young girl of unspecified age argued with her mother about the value of a passage in the Bible, tearing the relevant page. For this she was tried, sentenced to be whipped, and told to submit to her mother.
• In 1689, William of Orange and his wife Mary, the daughter of the recently exiled King James II of England, were jointly made King and Queen of England because, unlike James, they were Protestant. At the time, Mary was torn between her duty to the Anglican Church, the English state and her husband, and her duty to her father. When William told her to look cheerful on their triumphant arrival in London, some accused Mary of being insensitive to her father's plight, to her consternation. The ex-king James II himself also rebuked his daughter for her disregard toward him in "usurping" the throne; in addition, his supporters, the Jacobites, published a series of poems comparing Mary to Tullia Minor (according to semi-legendary Roman history, the daughter of Servius Tullius, the penultimate King of Rome, who encouraged her husband Tarquinius to usurp the throne from her father and who subsequently drove her chariot over her father's body).
• A stereotype about how children are raised in the American South is that there are parents who will get angry / discipline their children if, when they tell them to do something, even though they have obeyed the parent's request, they omit to say "Yes, Sir / Ma'am" when doing so.
• In some jurisdictions, murder carries stricter sentences when done on one's ascendents.

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