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Hexagram 54 of 64
The Marrying Maiden
歸妹 · Guī Mèi
The classic's most unfavourable hexagram, built on the image of a girl entering a household as a secondary wife. It is about relationships without proper standing.
subordinate position
irregular entry
restraint
knowing the end
- King Wen number
- 54 of 64
- Above
- ☳ Zhèn · Thunder
- Below
- ☱ Duì · Lake
- Composition
- Thunder over Lake
- Lines, bottom to top
- Solid · solid · broken · solid · broken · broken
- Chinese
- 歸妹 · Guī Mèi
The Judgment
Undertakings bring misfortune. Nothing that furthers.
The bleakest Judgment in the book. The classic does not soften it, and then spends six lines finding what can still be done.
The Image
Thunder above the lake: the Marrying Maiden. So the noble person understands the transitory by knowing how things end.
The only consolation offered: seeing the whole arc, including the finish, from inside the difficult middle.
What it means
Gui Mei is the hardest hexagram in the book to read generously, and it is not meant to be read generously. Its Judgment says undertakings bring misfortune and nothing furthers, which appears nowhere else in such flat terms.
The situation it describes is entry into a relationship or an arrangement from a position with no standing: the younger sister brought into a household as a secondary wife, without ceremony and without rights. The classic is describing a real social condition of its period and using it for any arrangement entered from below without a proper footing.
Having said the situation is bad, the book then finds what remains possible. A lame man can still walk. A one-eyed man can still see. Both lines assign good fortune to capacity honestly used inside its actual limits, which is the hexagram's practical teaching.
The fifth line supplies the model. A sovereign's daughter marries, and her sleeves are plainer than her attendant's. Restraint in a position that entitles her to display, and the moon one night short of full, which in this book always means: do not push for the last increment.
The top line is what happens when nothing is left but the form. A basket with no fruit, a sacrifice with no blood.
In a reading
The Marrying Maiden as an answer is a caution. It describes entering something from a position without standing, where the terms are not yours to set.
Its counsel is restraint and honesty about the limits. Do not undertake anything ambitious from here, use what capacity you actually have, and consider whether the fourth line applies: waiting for the proper season is explicitly permitted.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Six at the top
The woman holds the basket and there is no fruit in it. The man cuts the sheep and no blood flows. Nothing that furthers.
A ceremony performed with nothing in it. The classic's picture of a form emptied of its substance.
-
Six in the fifth place
The sovereign gives his daughter in marriage. Her sleeves were not as fine as the servingwoman's. The moon nearly full. Good fortune.
A princess who dresses beneath her rank. The best line in the hexagram, and it is entirely about restraint.
-
Nine in the fourth place
The maiden puts off the appointed time. A late marriage comes in its own season.
Declining to settle. The classic explicitly permits the delay and promises the season arrives.
-
Six in the third place
The maiden waits to be married. She goes back and marries as a secondary wife.
Waiting for a better offer and taking the lesser one anyway. The line records it without comment.
-
Nine in the second place
A one-eyed man can still see. It rewards the steadiness of someone living apart.
Partial sight, honestly used. Solitude here is treated as a workable arrangement rather than a loss.
-
Nine at the beginning
The maiden marries as a secondary wife. A lame man can still walk. Undertakings bring good fortune.
The lowest position, and the line finds good fortune in it. Limited capacity used within its limits works.
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