blood is thicker than water

'Blood is thicker than water'
- a phrase quoted in today's cultural anthropology class. We're studying family patterns and relations. Not a difficult phrase you might say, but doesn't every word has its story. I was suddenly reminded of the chinese phrase 'xue nong yu shui' and it started me thinking whether there's a relation between these two or whether there's a possibility one originated from another. Google gives some results but none of which concrete enough to give any history of origins. And it's surprising how the meaning of this phrase shifts in modern time. It probably dates back to the Middle East, the Arabic World a source says. Quoting from original source 'The blood of the covenant is stronger than the water of the womb' is an explanation quoted by some commentators.

However the expression has certainly been in use for hundreds of years with its modern interpretation - ie., that blood is stronger than water (relatives being connected by blood, compared to the comparative weakness of water, symbolising non-family). In this sense, the metaphor is such an obvious one that it is likely to have evolved separately from the supposed 'blood brothers' meaning, with slightly different variations from different societies, over the many hundreds of years that the expression has been in use.' Well guess I shouldn't say the meaning 'shifts' coz there's no concrete evidence whether the implication on strong family ties evovles from 'blood brothers'. (In the past, they'd cut their hands and clap them together to symbolise brotherly bonding.)

And i googled 'xue nong yu shui' to no avail. Who knows the origin of the chinese phrase??