Should You Break Up With a Bad Partner? Lessons Xi Gui Learned from the Second Yang Line of the Qian Hexagram

In the palace gardens of the Marquis of Xi during the Spring and Autumn Period, the newly wed Lady Xi Gui was staring blankly at a scroll of the *Book of Changes* on the table. The cedar incense in the bronze burner burned slowly, its plume of smoke rising straight and stiff, much like her tangled thoughts at that moment.

Truth be told, this marriage was a proper match in status: the Marquis of Xi was the ruler of a state, and she was a princess of Chen. By all rights, they should have been a model of harmonious union. Yet the Marquis of Xi was hopelessly incompetent by nature. His favorite pastime was clutching his jade scepter and staring into space, even shoving state affairs onto his ministers—let alone chatting with her about the *Classic of Poetry* or the *Book of Documents*. The day before, she had gently urged him to rule with diligence, only to be snapped at with "A woman must not meddle in governance." Furious, she had refused to so much as glance at him for three days.

Her personal maid entered carrying a lacquered tray. Seeing her lost in thought over the hexagram lines, she whispered, "Madam, you've grown thinner these past few days. If this servant may guess, are you wondering whether you ought to leave this marriage?" Such words were bold even in the Spring and Autumn Period; after all, a married princess was like spilt water—there was no question of just walking away.

Lady Xi Gui traced her fingertips over the eight characters on the bamboo slip: *"Seeing the dragon in the field; it is favorable to see the great man."* She suddenly smiled. "What do you know? Things in this world are never just black and white. A few days ago, I was also fretting over how to see the situation clearly, thinking marrying the wrong person was the end of the world. Now I'm starting to see another meaning."

Just then, an announcement came from outside the palace gate: the Marquis of Cai had sent an envoy with gifts. Lady Xi Gui raised an eyebrow. This Marquis of Cai was her brother-in-law, and notoriously frivolous. When she had passed through Cai on her way back to Chen a few days prior, he had stared at her for the length of half an incense stick, so transfixed that he even tilted his wine cup askew. For him to come bearing gifts now—his intentions were obvious even to a fool.

The maid grew anxious. "Madam, what shall we do? With the Marquis of Cai's temperament, who knows what trouble he might stir up? How are we to handle this dilemma?"

Lady Xi Gui, however, was unruffled. She tapped her fingertips lightly on the four characters "favorable to see the great man" on the bamboo slip. "Look at this second line of the Qian hexagram: the dragon descends to the field not to soar to the sky, nor to retreat into hiding, but first to find a place where it can take root and accomplish things. I used to think a woman's whole life depended on marrying a good husband, and that if the husband was unreliable, the sky would fall. Now I understand—why must this 'great man' always be a husband?"

She had the Marquis of Cai's gifts returned untouched, along with a message: "This concubine knows only the Marquis of Xi, not the Marquis of Cai"—leaving not the slightest room for compromise. She then went to find the Marquis of Xi, saying not a word about urging him to be diligent in governance. She only mentioned that she had learned some calculation techniques back in Chen and wanted to help sort out the palace account books. The Marquis of Xi had always found such trivial matters a nuisance, and hearing someone was willing to take them off his hands, he was only too happy to be an even more hands-off ruler.

In less than half a year, the Xi palace's operating expenses had been cut by a third, and even the royal fields on the outskirts had been expanded by a hundred *mu*. The Marquis of Xi still spent his days clutching his jade scepter and staring blankly, but when the court ministers spoke of their lady ruler, not a single one failed to give a thumbs-up.

One bright spring day, Lady Xi Gui took her maid for an outing in the suburbs. Looking at the young sprouts just pushing up through the soil in the fields, she suddenly thought of the line "seeing the dragon in the field." It turned out a dragon didn't have to fly through the sky. When it alighted in the fields, turning the soil beneath its feet fertile and bringing benefit to all those around it—that, too, was a kind of grandeur. As for whether the man at her side was a perfect husband, that no longer seemed so important. After all, a life is lived by oneself, not given by someone else.