44 | Une femme de pouvoir

Extrait de l’ouvrage « The Complete Book of Changes: 周易Translation with A Commentary on the Evolution of Consciousness » de Douglass A. White, Ph.D

	Encounter
qian
xun

44

The commentator takes his interpretation from the Family Members. The father (QIAN) in this case is a king or patriarch of a clan. His successor is a strong daughter. This recalls cases such as Elizabeth I of England. Her father, King Henry VIII, failed to produce a male heir, and a daughter came to the throne to become a powerful Queen.

Encounter: the woman is strong. Do not marry the woman.

Continuing with the example of Elizabeth I, we find that she was a very strong and intelligent woman. However, in her position as the head of state, she could not find a suitable mate, and thus remained unmarried. Because of the complexities of politics, anyone marrying her would have faced a very difficult life. Often a powerful woman has to choose between her urge to have a family and her natural ability as a leader in business or politics. If she develops her career (XUN) to its full creative potential QIAN, her attention will be there rather than on her husband and family. She will “wear the pants”. (…)

Like the previous hexagram, Resoluteness (43), the hexagram of Encounter is ruled by a single yin line that wields great power, but in this case from an inferior position. Thus we have the image of a woman who takes over the government. This is surprising and does not happen often, but there have been great queens such as Hatshepsut of Egypt or Elizabeth I of England, who wielded great power and benefited their people with a great age of progress and prosperity. More often, because society tends to be male dominated (unless it is a traditional matriarchal society), the woman feels out of place in a situation of open power and makes up for her female “weakness” with an assumed air of toughness. The word “marry” can simply mean to choose or take, as in the case of choosing a woman to be a leader or chief executive. A strong-willed and controlling woman runs against the female energy, which usually tends to be soft, and full of loving care. The irony is that the tough woman is simply reflecting the unbalanced male energy that she Encounters. 

Voir aussi 44 | Les excès du yin