Claim. Because yang and yin are attributes of sungsang and hyungsang (substance/attribute relation), perfection of individual character must precede the unity of man and woman in marriage — the metaphysical grounding for placing individual perfection before family perfection in the Three Great Blessings.
Elaboration. Lee deduces a normative ordering from the substance-precedes-attribute relation. The sungsang-hyungsang task is mind-body unity (perfection of character); the yang-yin task is unity of man and woman. Since substance grounds attribute, the first task must precede the second (Solution of Actual Problems through Understanding that Yang and Yin Are the Attributes of Sungsang and Hyungsang).
Lee aligns this with the Three Great Blessings from Divine Principle: perfection of individuality, perfection of the family, perfection of dominion. The first precedes the second by metaphysical necessity, not just by pedagogical convenience.
Lee finds the same pattern in Confucius’s Great Learning: ‘Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed. Their States being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.’ Cultivation of person precedes regulation of family — ‘the author of The Great Learning understood this pattern, even if unconsciously.’
The diagnostic: degradation of sexual morality, disharmony, divorce, family destruction all trace to violating this ordering — starting a family before character perfection. The remedy is concrete: ‘the problem of man and woman, which is one of the most difficult of all actual problems today, can only be solved through the perfection of character in both man and woman before starting a family.’
This is foundational for Blessing preparation and the UC norm against premarital sexual relations. It also gives the UC a metaphysical (not merely scriptural or pragmatic) argument for chastity. Critics from secular ethics engage on whether the metaphysical derivation is doing work or whether the conclusion is smuggled in via the choice of which ‘task’ belongs to which level. Worth a thread once a secular counter-atomic exists.
See also. man-yang-substantial-woman-yin-substantial, conjugal-union-fourfold-significance, perfection-as-spirit-mind-dominating-physical-mind