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此の父にして此の娘有り kono chichi ni shite kono musume ari Like Father, Like Daughter

此の父にして此の娘有り (kono chichi ni shite kono musume ari), such a father, such a daughter, is the proverb この父にしてこの子あり with 娘, daughter, for 子, child. The proverb comes from a line of the 孔叢子, and the daughter's form is in print from 1909. This study follows it through Bakin's novel of 1807–11 and asks what it has meant, praise or blame.

Japanese Scroll of Like Father, Like Daughter (kono chichi ni shite kono musume ari) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Like Father, Like Daughter此の父にして此の娘有りkono chichi ni shite kono musume ari

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

此の父にして此の娘有り, such a father, such a daughter, is the Japanese proverb この父にしてこの子あり with 娘, daughter, in place of 子, child. Both modern dictionaries give the proverb's first sense as praise, a fine child of a fine father, and call the blame sense a misuse [1][2]. This study reads the line it comes from, in the 孔叢子, where 子思 states it as a rule with an exception; follows it into Japanese from Bakin's novel of 1807–11; and finds the daughter's form in print from 1909, when 大町桂月 used it twice, once in praise and once in wonder at a traitor's loyal daughter. The English like father, like daughter is older, in print from 1600.

Overview

The sense. Praise first: only such a fine father could have such a fine child (精選版日本国語大辞典), and, in the second dictionary, a child takes after its parent (デジタル大辞泉). Both give a second sense, such a bad parent, such a bad child, and both call it a misuse, 誤用 [1][2]. Neither enters the form with 娘; it is the proverb said of a daughter.

The words. にして, being, given that it is; 子 ko, a child of either sex, which the proverb uses, replaced here with 娘 musume, daughter; あり, there is, which this text writes in kanji as 有り, the character of the Chinese, as the kanbun reading keeps it [1][3].

The text in English. Like father, like daughter is a variant of like father, like son, which carries praise and blame alike from its first English example (c. 1340); like mother, like daughter is a separate proverb [4]. The daughter's form is in English print from 1600, in blame [5].

The historical record

The 孔叢子, chapter 居衛. A book of the sayings of Confucius's descendants, attributed to 孔鮒 and judged a forgery of the Wei and Jin [6]. In 齊, 尹文子 has a son unlike him, beats him, and tells 子思 that the boy is not his and he will put away his wife. 子思 answers that by that reasoning the consorts of 堯 and 舜 would be suspect, since their sons were worse than common men:

然舉其多者，有此父斯有此子，道之常也，若夫賢父之有愚子，此由天道自然，非子之妻之罪也

Taking most cases, with such a father there is such a son; that is the constant way. But when a wise father has a foolish son, that is heaven's way and nature, not your wife's fault [7]. The 四部叢刊 text reads 人道之常也, the constant way of man [8]. In its chapter the line is a rule of likeness with its exception, said for the wife's sake, not praise of anyone. The Meiji dictionaries that cite it set Han lines of praise beside it, among them the 史記's word on the mother of 張湯, 非此母不能生此子, none but this mother could have borne this son [9][10].

1807–11, 曲亭馬琴, 『椿説弓張月』. The first Japanese use the dictionary cites, at the leaf: a princess hears how a loyal father was cut down and how his sons served him, and says 将汝等が孝心。世に儔稀なり。嗚乎この父にして。この子あり, and your filial hearts are rare in the world. Ah, such a father, such sons [1][11]. Praise, of a father's loyalty and his sons' devotion.

1886–1949. The proverb, of sons, in praise and in blame. A Meiji biographical dictionary has 毛利勝永 say it of 真田幸村's son, back from his first battle with a head and a wound: 此の父にして此の子あり [12]. A 1921 teishō on the 碧巌録 prints the Chinese 此父而有此子 with its reading beneath, 此の父にして此の子有り, said of a Zen master and the heir who matched him [3]. Praise is the common use, of sons who die as their fathers died and as readily of sons who carry on a father's trade, office or learning. Blame stands beside it from 1905, when 坪内雄蔵, lecturing on public and private morals, spoke of 此の親にして此の子ありといふ薄情者、我儘者, a heartless, selfish one of the such-a-parent-such-a-child kind [13]. The dictionary dates the blame sense by its first citation, 唐木順三 in 1965 [1]; the use is sixty years older.

1909. The daughter's form, 大町桂月. The essayist uses it twice in one year. In 『月影集』, telling the 忠臣蔵 story of 可留子, who killed herself so that 大石良雄 need not fear she would betray the plan he had told her, and of her old father, who would not weep because she had died for the right cause, he writes: いさましくも、また、をゝしく、以て良雄の忠肝義膽に配するに足れり。げに、此父にして此娘ありとやいはむ, brave and manly, worthy to stand beside 良雄's loyalty. Truly, one may say: such a father, such a daughter [14]. Praise, of a commoner father and daughter. In 『源氏と平氏』, the same year, the father is 長田忠致, in whose house 源義朝 was killed in his bath, and whose son cut down 鎌田政家 from behind as he drank with him; 政家's wife, 忠致's daughter, ran to her husband and killed herself with his sword: あゝ、この父にして、この娘もある哉, Ah, that such a father should have such a daughter! [15]. Here it is wonder at a daughter unlike her father, the 孔叢子's exception turned the other way.

1910–1944. Of daughters, in praise and in blame. The daughter's form runs on in the full text of the National Diet Library's books, in both spellings of この and in the form with 親: in praise, of daughters who carry on a father's work or match his character, in blame, as a 1935 school's book on home education has it of a girl at the bottom of her class, この父にしてこの娘あり嗚呼 [16][17]. A 1944 study of Hokusai, in its section on his Buddhist faith and the 卍 of his late name, notes that his daughter Ōi, herself a fine painter, practiced physiognomy and divination and entered the Buddhist path late in life, and concludes まさに此の父にして此の娘ありといふ可きであらう, one may well say: such a father, such a daughter [18]. The mother's form, 此母にして此娘あり, is in print earlier, from 1897 [19].

1948 onward. A 1948 book on French usage gives 此の父にして此の娘あり as the Japanese of Tel père, telle fille [20], and after the war the form with この returns from translated fiction, magazines and the press, in praise and in blame [16]. The one book the search returns that writes the daughter's form with 有り, as this scroll does, is a 1953 issue of the tea magazine 淡交: この父にしてこの娘有り, said of the Zen layman 龐居士 and his daughter 霊照, who answered him with the line 明々たり祖師の意 [21]. The scroll's own spelling, 此の父にして此の娘有り, returns nothing.

The proverb in English

1600, Laurence Barker, Christs checke to Saint Peter. Of Curiosity as the devil's daughter, at the leaf: if that bee true which commonly is sayd, that κακοῦ κόρακος κακὸν ᾠόν like birde, like egge, like father, like daughter, it were strange that the diuell so vglie as hee is, should bring forth Curiosity so faire as she pretends [5]. Blame, and already commonly sayd.

1800, Maria Edgeworth, The Parent's Assistant. In Simple Susan, a farmer hearing what the attorney's daughter has done: Barbara! aye! like father, like daughter [22]. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs notes only that the variant also occurs, and Whiting's dictionary of modern proverbs cites it from 1924 [4][23].

Today. Both dictionaries give praise first and call blame a misuse [1][2]. What a rendering must keep is that the Japanese proverb is first a word of praise, and that said of a daughter it has been praise, blame and wonder since 1909.

A reading

The proverb began as an argument about likeness, not praise: 子思 tells a jealous husband that a son usually takes after his father, and that a son who does not is no proof against his wife. Japanese took it up as praise, and the daughter's form was praise from its first year, 桂月's old commoner and his brave daughter. The same writer, the same year, used it of 長田忠致's daughter, and there it says the opposite: that a traitor had a loyal child. What decides the sense is who says it of whom. Said to a daughter of her father, it is praise, and a scroll given by a father to his daughter, or by a daughter to her father, says it the old way. 有り and あり are one word in two spellings; the kanji is the Chinese source's own character, and the kanbun reading writes it the same way.

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「此親にしてこの子あり」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/此親にしてこの子あり-2039684
  2. 「此の親にして此の子あり」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/此の親にして此の子あり-503508
  3. 日置黙仙, 鉄笛倒吹講話, 下巻, 実業之日本社, 1921, scan 122. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/963235/1/122
  4. Jennifer Speake, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, 6th ed., Oxford University Press, 2015, s.v. Like FATHER, like son and Like MOTHER, like daughter.
  5. Laurence Barker, Christs checke to Saint Peter, London, 1600, leaf n119. https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_christs-checke-to-saint-_barker-laurence_1600/page/n119
  6. 「孔叢子」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/孔叢子-55418
  7. 孔叢子, 居衛第七, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孔叢子/07
  8. 孔叢子, 四部叢刊本, 卷第二, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孔叢子_(四部叢刊本)/卷第二
  9. 藤井乙男, ed., 諺語大辞典, 有朋堂, 1910, scan 224. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/224
  10. 司馬遷, 史記, 卷一百二十二, 酷吏列傳, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷122
  11. 曲亭馬琴, 葛飾北斎 画, 椿説弓張月, 28 vols., 1807–11, the National Diet Library's set, its fourth item, scan 167. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2557125/1/167
  12. 嵯峨正作, ed., 大日本人名辞書, 経済雑誌社, 1886, scan 183. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/779849/1/183
  13. 坪内雄蔵, 公徳と私徳, 早稲田大学出版部, 1905, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/987948/1/22
  14. 大町桂月, 月影集, 日高有倫堂, 1909, scan 54. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/889174/1/54
  15. 大町桂月, 源氏と平氏, 1909, scan 85. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/772052/1/85
  16. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on この父にしてこの娘, oldest first (186 items, 1909 onward). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=この父にしてこの娘&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  17. 福島県郡山市赤木尋常小学校, 実際的家庭教育, 1935, scan 92. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1442173/1/92
  18. 浮世絵研究会 (ed.), 北斎の研究, 上, 北光書房, 1944, scan 89. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1068949/1/89
  19. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 此母にして此娘, oldest first (13 items, 1897 onward). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=此母にして此娘&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  20. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 此の父にして此の娘, oldest first (14 items, 1910 onward; 森下辰夫, 仏蘭西語新考, 1948). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=此の父にして此の娘&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  21. 淡交, July 1953, snippet view, National Diet Library, persistent ID 7890736. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/7890736
  22. Maria Edgeworth, The Barring Out, Eton Montem, Being the Sixth Volume of the Parent's Assistant, 3rd ed., 1800, Simple Susan, p. 64, leaf n63. https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-barring-out-eton-mo_edgeworth-maria_1800_2/page/n63
  23. Bartlett Jere Whiting, Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings, Harvard University Press, 1989, F47 Like Father, like daughter.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations of the seven-text grouped history this page was split from; its one contradiction here (人道之常也 against 道之常也) is settled by the Chinese witnesses, which print both, and every other sentence it checked here was rewritten at the gate of 2026-10-01

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 此の父にして此の娘有り (kono chichi ni shite kono musume ari)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kono-chichi-ni-shite-kono-musume-ari.