家人 → 損
Hexagram 37: The Family → Hexagram 41: Decrease
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5).
Line 2
六二 无攸遂。在中饋。貞吉。
Six in the second place means: She should not follow her whims. She must attend within to the food. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 3
九三 家人嗃嗃。悔厲吉。婦子嘻嘻。終吝。
Nine in the third place means: When tempers flare up in the family, Too great severity brings remorse. Good fortune nonetheless. When woman and child dally and laugh It leads in the end to humiliation.
Line 5
九五 王假有家。勿恤吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: As a king he approaches his family. Fear not. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
剛柔相呼，二姓為家。霜降既同，惠我以仁。
Hard and soft call to each other; two surnames form one family. The frost has fallen and they are joined; grace and benevolence are bestowed upon us.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind from fire joins two elements in the family hearth, and here that joining is made explicit through marriage. Hard and soft call to each other; two surnames unite as one household. When frost descends they share it together, and kindness is bestowed through mutual care. The 'hard and soft calling to each other' echoes the I-Ching's own language for the interplay of yang and yin lines — the structural principle that generates all hexagrams. Marriage is this principle made human: two complementary natures finding wholeness through union. From The Family to Decrease, the mountain rises above the lake as the lower diminishes to benefit the upper. Yet in marriage, decrease is not loss but willing sacrifice — each partner gives something up so that the household may gain.
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