This chapter examines the role of honor and shame in defining the warrior nobility that dominated the valleys of the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers in the early Eastern Zhou (770 - ca. 500 BCE). In this society honor reflected one’s hereditary place in the hierarchy of nobility, and also one’s heroism or success in battle. Shame was primarily a matter of failing to exhibit such heroism. Such honor was entirely masculine, and its two aspects were frequently in conflict, as ascribed status was established by seniority, while the heroism was often a hallmark of youth. This personal honor gained through heroism, which often figured in overthrowing a ruler or destroying a state, is our earliest example of constituting a public order separate from the formal political realm, and how such alternate honor helped to transform the social order.