A sad case has just happened: a band of young maidens ended their

existence in this world by drowning themselves in the Dragon River because

one of them was forced by her parents to be married. She was engaged in

her childhood before she joined this sisterhood. When her parents had made

all the necessary arrangements for her marriage she reported the affair to

the other members of her sisterhood who at once agreed to die for her

cause, if she remained constant to her sworn vows to be single and

virtuous. Should she violate the laws of the sisterhood and yield to her

parents, her life was to be made most unpleasant by the other members and

she was to be taunted as a worthless being. She consulted with them as to

the best mode of escaping this marriage, and they all agreed to die with

her, if she could plan to run away from her parents on the night of the

marriage.

As there were many friends to watch her movements, it was almost

impossible for her to escape, so she attempted her life by swallowing a

gold ring, but any serious consequence that might have resulted was

prevented by the administration of a powerful emetic. She was finally

taken by force and made over to the male side, to her great grief.

According to the usual custom she was allowed to return to her parents.

During all this time she was planning a way to escape to her sisters. By

bribing the female servants she was taken one night to her sisters under

the cover of darkness. The sisters at once joined with her in terminating

their lives by jumping into the Dragon River with its swift currents,

which rapidly carried them off.

This kind of tragedy is not uncommon in this part of the land. The

officials have from time to time tried to check the formation of such

sisterhoods, but all their efforts were in vain. Girls must have reasons

of their own for establishing such societies. Married life must have been

proved by many in that region to have been not altogether too sweet.

However, such wholesale suicide must be prevented by law if the parents

have no control over their daughters.

It is well known that Chinese law recognizes seven grounds for the divorce

of a wife, as follows: childlessness, wanton conduct, neglect of husband's

parents, loquacity (_to yen_), thievishness, jealousy, malignant disease.

The requisites for a Chinese wife are by no means sure to be exacting. A

man in the writer's employ, who was thinking of giving up his single life,

on being questioned as to what sort of a wife he preferred, compendiously

replied, "It is enough if she is neither bald nor idiotic." In a country

where the avowed end of marriage is to raise up a posterity to burn

incense at the ancestral graves, it is not strange that "childlessness"

should rank first among the grounds for divorce. It would be an error,

however, to infer that simply because they are designated in the Imperial

code of laws, either this or any other of the above mentioned, are the

ordinary occasions of divorce.

It is always difficult to arrive at just conclusions in regard to facts of

a high degree of complexity, especially in regard to the Chinese. But so

far as we can perceive, the truth appears to be that divorce in China is

by no means so common as might be expected by reasoning from the law just

quoted. Probably the most common cause is adultery, for the reason that

this is the crime most fatal to the existence of the family.

But it must be distinctly understood that in every case of divorce, there

is a factor to be taken into account which the law does not even consider.

This is the family of the woman, and, as we have seen, it is a factor of

great importance, and by no means to be disregarded. It is very certain

that the family of the woman will resist any divorce which they consider

to be unjust or disgraceful, not merely on account of the loss of "face,"

but for another reason even more powerful.

In China a woman cannot return to her parent's home after an unhappy

marriage, as is often done in Western lands, _because there is no

provision for her support_. Enough land is set apart for the maintenance

of the parents, and after that has been provided for, the remainder is

divided among the brothers. No lot or portion falls to any sister. It is

this which makes it imperative that every woman should be married, that

she may have some visible means of support. After her parents are dead,

her brothers, or more certainly her brothers' wives, would drive her from

the premises, as an alien who had no business to depend upon their family

when she "belongs" to another. Under this state of things, it is not very

likely that a husband would be allowed to divorce his wife except for a

valid cause, unless there should be some opportunity for her to "take a

step," that is, to remarry elsewhere.

Next to adultery, the most common cause of Chinese divorce is thought to

be what Western laws euphemistically term incompatibility, by which is

meant, in this case, such constant domestic brawls as to make life, even

to a Chinese, not worth living. It is needless to remark that when things

have reached this pitch, they must be very bad indeed. Every one of the

above cited causes for divorce evidently affords room for the loosest

construction of the facts, and if the law were left to its own execution,

with no restraint from the wife's family, the grossest injustice might be

constantly committed. As it is, whatever settlement is arrived at in any

particular case, must be the result of a compromise, in which the friends

of the weaker party take care to see that their rights are considered.

We have repeatedly referred to the imperative necessity that every Chinese

youth should be married. To a foreigner there is a mixture of the

ludicrous and the pathetic in the attitude of the average parent, in

regard to a marriage of a son who has nearly reached the age of twenty and

is still single. It is a Chinese aphorism of ancient times that when sons

and daughters are once married, "the great business of life has been

despatched." Chinese parents look upon the marriage of their sons just as

Western parents look upon the matter of taking young boys out of their

early dresses and putting them into trousers. The serious part of life

cannot be begun until this is done, and to delay it is ridiculous and

irrational.

There is a sentiment of false modesty which forbids the persons most

interested in a marriage, even to refer to it. It is often impossible for

any one but the mother to hint to a girl that it is time she were

betrothed, an announcement which is naturally the frequent occasion for

stormy scenes.

A Chinese teacher well known to the writer, having graduated from a

missionary college at the age of twenty-three, remembered that he was not

betrothed. When matters had been arranged without his appearing to be

aware of the fact (although he was consulted at each step) it became

necessary to visit his home to arrange with his parents the time of the

marriage. But the sensitive young man refused to go on this errand

himself, and posted off a "yard uncle," urging as a more than sufficient

reason: "How could _I_ speak to my father and mother about such a thing as

that?"

Since this paragraph was written a Chinese friend called on the writer

with an air of pleased embarrassment about "a little matter" which seemed

to interest him. He is more than forty years of age, and had never been

married. He has two brothers, all three sharing in common a property

amounting to less than two English acres. This brother had been at home

for some months, during which there was no mention of matrimony, nor any

thought of it. Having left home for a few weeks, before the time was

nearly expired the elder brother posted off a special messenger to a

distance of more than 300 li to mention to him the fact that he had

suddenly arranged a betrothal for this forty years old bachelor, to a girl

of seventeen, whose friends were now pressing for an immediate execution

of the contract. The interview closed with the expression of an earnest

wish on the part of the Chinese that his foreign friend would see his way

clear to "a loan" of twenty strings of cash for the bride's outfit, the

bridegroom having no independent property whatever, and no income. The

comment of ninety-nine out of an hundred Chinese on this match, or on any

other in similar circumstances would be compendiously condensed in the

single word "_hao_," meaning when fully explicated, "It is well; this is

what certainly ought to be done now." Questions of expense appear to them

as irrelevant as they would to us if the matter was the burial of a

parent.

Chinese parents are never willing to run the risk of having the marriage

of any of their children, especially the sons, postponed until after the

death of their parents. They often feel uncertain whether the children

already married will be willing to make the proper provision for the

event, or indeed that they will let it take place at all. Affairs of this

sort involve the partition of the land, with a portion to each married

son, and it is not in human nature to wish to multiply the sharers in a

property which is too often at the best wholly inadequate. For this

cause, every prudent parent wishes to see this "main business of life,"

put through while he is able to superintend the details.

The inexorable necessity for the marriage of sons is not suspended by the

fact that the child is wholly unsuited for a real marriage, or indeed

incapable of it. Cases constantly occur, in which a boy who is a hopeless

and helpless cripple is married to a girl, whose family only assent to the

arrangement, because of the advantageous terms which are offered. Children

who are subject to epileptic or other forms of fits, those who are more or

less insane, and even those who are wholly idiotic, all may have, and do

have, wives, provided only that the families of the boys were in good

circumstances. The inevitable result of this violation of the laws of

nature, is an infinity of suffering for the girls whose lives are thus

wrecked, and the evolution of a wealth of scandal.

There is another feature of Chinese married life, to which little

attention seems to have been paid by foreigners, but which is well worth

investigation. It is the kidnapping of legally married wives. The method

by which this may be accomplished, and the difficulty of tracking those

who do it, may be illustrated by the following case, with the principal

parties in which, the father and father-in-law of the bride, the writer is

acquainted, having been present at the wedding in December, 1881.

The bride herself, was, as so often, a mere child. On her frequent visits

to her native village, which local custom allows, the bride did not spend

much of her time at her own home, where she was probably not made very

welcome by her step-mother, but went instead to her grandmother's, who was

old, half blind, and ill supplied with bedding. In a neighbouring yard

lived a cousin of the girl, who was a "salt inspector," that is, one whose

duty is to seize dealers in smuggled salt. His wife was the daughter of a

widow, who was reported to be herself a dealer in smuggled salt, of course

with the connivance of her son-in-law. This couple were said to have been

married without the intervention of go-betweens, and hence the most

flagitious conduct was to be expected from them. The girl got into the

habit, whenever she visited her village, of going to the house of this

cousin, and not to that of her father. The cousin was absent much of the

time, on his business in connection with the suppression (or the sale) of

smuggled salt. Upon one occasion, after a ten days' visit to her native

village she returned to the home of her husband (also a mere child), where

she stayed five days, and then went again to her own village. A younger

sister-in-law, sixteen years of age, went with her two-thirds of the way,

at which point the bride sent her escort back and proceeded alone. Some

days after this the own sister of the bride met the father-in-law at a

fair, and inquired why the bride did not return to her own village as

agreed. Her absence from both homes was thus for the first time

discovered. The steps taken to follow her are an excellent illustration of

certain phases of Chinese life. It is almost impossible in China for any

one to do anything so secretly that some other persons do not know of it,

and in an affair so serious as the disappearance outright of a young

bride, the chances of successful concealment would seem to be very slight.

The father-in-law of the girl went to the village where she had lived, and

learned that upon the occasion of her home visits the child had been

allowed to go where she pleased, and that once after coming in from her

cousin's, she had been heard to remark that she herself was worth as much

as five ounces of silver. It was also reported that the wife of the cousin

had been observed waiting for the missing girl, on the night she was last

seen at the time when she dismissed the sister-in-law who had accompanied

her. This was all the clue that could be got.

The father-in-law now presented a petition to the District Magistrate,

reciting the facts and accusing the girl's father, and others. This was

followed by counter accusations from the father, the cousin, and his

mother-in-law. The official reply to the complaint was an order to the

local constable to find the girl. The constable was a wholly incompetent

person, and could not have found her if he had tried. A second petition to

the Magistrate was followed by the same reply. This signified that there

was no hope from that official, who took no interest in the matter.

After these repeated failures of justice, the poor father-in-law resolved

to make one more trial, a desperate expedient, but the only one which was

left. He seized the occasion of the passing of the District official

through that village, to kneel in Front of the sedan-chair and proclaim

his grievance. The Magistrate merely repeated what had been said in court,

that he knew nothing about the matter; that it was not his business to

find the cattle of those who might lose them, neither was it his function

to recover daughters-in-law. He also expressed the opinion that the

father-in-law was lacking in proof of his case, and was falsely accusing

parties who were innocent, and then ordered his chair to proceed.

The only remaining hope of tracing the missing person was to follow up

chance dues. In such a case, no one will give any information whatever, no

matter what he may know, for the reason that the possible effect may be to

drag him as witness into a fearful lawsuit, which is only one step removed

from being the principal victim oneself. This is so universal a deterrent

in a quest of this sort as almost to bar all progress. Those who were

interested in this particular case were led to recall another, which

occurred many years before in a village immediately contiguous, where the

wife of a man who was working for some one else was taken off (of course

with her consent) while he was absent. In this instance, although the

husband was able to ascertain to what village she had been taken, yet as

it was a large one he could never get any further trace of her, and she

died there. The writer is personally acquainted with two families in

which such occurrences have taken place, and with a third, the wife in

which, when living with her first husband who divorced her, was to have

been kidnapped, if the plan could have been carried out.

It is of course impossible to form any correct idea as to the extent to

which the kidnapping of married women is carried in China, but there are a

few little windows through which glimpses may be had of regions beyond our

ordinary vision. Such glimpses may be frequently gained from accounts

published in Chinese native newspapers, in which such accounts often form

a staple topic. In the absence of any acquaintance with the wider

interests of the empire, these piquant personalities seem to many Chinese

very entertaining, as items of a similar sort do to certain readers in

Western lands. Such gossip is collected at the yamAȘns, where many of the

cases reported have already reached the stage of a prosecution, and others

are quietly adjusted by "peace-talkers." Similar information may also be

obtained from occasional memorials printed in the _Peking Gazette_. It not

seldom happens that these kidnapping cases lead to murder, and perhaps to

wholesale fighting, ending in many deaths, which render it necessary for a

Governor to report the facts and proceedings to Peking. From data of this

sort one would infer that, as the proverb says, "The crow is everywhere

equally black."

We have spoken of the sale of girls by their parents, and have now to

refer to the more or less common cases of the sale of wives by their

husbands. This is generally due to the press of poverty, and the writer is

acquainted with a Chinese who, being deeply in debt, was thrown into

prison from which he found deliverance hopeless. He accordingly sent word

to his relatives to have his wife sold, which was done, and with the

proceeds the man was able to buy his escape. The frequency of such sales

may be said to bear a direct ratio to the price of grain.

There is another method of selling wives, with which the Chinese are

acquainted, which can be adopted whenever the pressure of life at home

becomes too hard to be borne. The husband and wife then start off on a

begging expedition toward a region in which the crops have been good. In a

bad year, there are thousands of such persons roaming about the country,

picking up a scanty subsistence wherever they can. The man who wishes to

sell his wife represents her as his sister, and declares that they are

forced by hunger to part company. He reluctantly makes up his mind to sell

her to some one who is in need of a wife, and who can get one more cheaply

by this process than by any other. To this arrangement the woman tearfully

assents, the money is paid to her "brother," and he departs, to be seen no

more. After a few days or a few weeks in her new home, the newly married

"sister" contrives to steal out in the evening with all of her own clothes

and as many more as she can collect, and rejoins her "brother," setting

out with him for "fresh woods and pastures new." With that keen instinct

for analogy which characterizes the Chinese, they have invented for this

proceeding the name of "falconing with a woman," likening it to the sport

of a man who places his hawk on his wrist, and releases it when he sees

game in sight, only that the bird may speedily return. It is a popular

proverb, that "playing the falcon with a woman" implies a plot in which

two persons are concerned.

An inquirer is told that in some districts this practice of "falconing" is

exceedingly common, for the supply of gullible persons who hope to buy a

wife at a cheaper rate than usual never fails.

The Chinese ridicule any one who seems to be infatuated with a bargain in

which a woman is concerned, but it is not improbable that under similar

circumstances they themselves would do the same. An old fellow living in

the same village as the writer bought a woman under what he considered

exceptionally profitable conditions, and lest she should escape, he

anchored her in the yard fastened to a peg like a donkey. His neighbours

laughed at him, and he at them, until the woman suddenly disappeared, an

event which reduced him to a more sober view of the "five relations."

Chinese public sentiment is altogether on the right side of this question,

but Chinese practice is not under the guidance of sentiment of any kind.

It is proverbial that a judicious man will never marry a woman who has a

living husband, for the sufficient reason that he never can foresee the

consequences, which are often serious. But the instinct of trying to cheat

Fate is in all Chinese most vigorous. "Cheaper than an animal," was the

self-complacent comment of a Chinese friend of the writer's in regard to

his own second marriage where he had paid no money for his wife, but only

an allowance for outfit. But when the elder sister-in-law had been heard

from, this same individual was dissolved in tears for many moons, since

his future peace seemed to have been wrecked.

It is a natural sequence to the Chinese doctrine of the necessity of

having male children that, in case this becomes unlikely, a secondary

wife, or concubine, should be taken, with that end in view. As a matter of

fact this practice is confined to a comparatively small number of

families, mainly those in fairly good circumstances, for no others could

afford the expense. The evils of this expedient are well recognized, and

it is fortunate for Chinese society that resort is not had to it on a much

greater scale than appears to be the case. The practical turn of the

Chinese mind has suggested to them a much simpler method of arriving at

the intended results, by a much less objectionable method. This is the

well-known adoption of children from collateral branches of the family,

already mentioned, so as to keep the line of succession intact, and

prevent the extinction of any particular branch.

It not infrequently happens that the son in a family dies before he is

married, and that it is desirable to adopt, not a son, but a grandson.

There is however, to the Chinese, a kind of paradox in adopting a

grandson, when the son has not been married. To remedy this defect after

the boy had died unmarried would, to the practical Occidental, appear

impossible, but it is not so to the sentimental Chinese. To meet this

exigency they have invented the practice of _marrying the dead_, which is

certainly among the most singular of the many singular performances to be

met with in China.

In order to keep the line of succession unbroken, it is thought desirable

that each generation should have its proper representatives, whether they

really were or were not links in the chain. It is only in families where

there is some considerable property that this question is likely to arise.

Where it does arise, and where a lad has died for whom it is thought

desirable to take a post-mortem wife, the family cast about to hear of

some young girl who has also died recently. A proposition is then made, by

the usual intermediaries, for the union of these two corpses in the bonds

of matrimony! It is probably only poor families to which such a

proposition in regard to their daughter would be made; to no others would

it be any object. If it is accepted, there is a combination of a wedding

and a funeral, in the process of which the deceased "bride" will be taken

by a large number of bearers to the cemetery of the other family, and laid

beside her "husband"! The newly adopted grandson worships the corpse of

his "mother," and the other ceremonies proceed in the usual way.

The writer was personally acquainted with a Chinese girl who after her

death was thus "married" to a dead boy in another village. Upon being

questioned in regard to the matter, her father admitted that it was not an

entirely rational procedure, but remarked that the girl's mother was in

favour of accepting the offer. The real motive in this case was

undoubtedly a desire to have a showy funeral at the expense of another

family, for a child who was totally blind, and whose own parents were too

poor at her death to do more than wrap her body in a mat.

The practice of marrying one dead person to another is very far from

uncommon to China. Its ultimate root is found in the famous dictum of

Mencius, that of the three lines of unfilial conduct the chief is to leave

no posterity. This utterance is one upon which the whole domestic life of

the Chinese seems to have rested for ages. It is for this reason that

those Chinese who have not yet married are accounted as of no importance.

When they die, they are, if children, "thrown out" either literally or

figuratively, and are not allowed a place in the family graveyards. These

belong exclusively to those who are mated, and occasional bachelors must

expect no welcome there. The same principle seems to be applicable to

those who have died, and whose wives have remarried. It is for such cases

that the strange plan of marrying a living woman to a dead husband has

been invented. The motive on the part of the woman could be only that of

saving herself from starvation, a fate which often hangs imminent over

poor Chinese widows who do not remarry. The motive on the part of the

family of the deceased husband is to make the ancestral graves complete.

If the family of the deceased is not moderately well off, they would not

go to the expense and trouble of bringing in a wife for a dead husband.

But if she were well off, the widow would probably not have remarried. It

thus appears the marriage of a living woman to a dead man is likely to be

confined to cases where the family being poor, the widow remarried, but

where the family circumstances having subsequently materially improved, it

became an object to arrange as already explained to fill the threatened

graveyard gap.

It is perhaps for this reason that cases of such marriage appear to be

relatively rare, so rare indeed, that many even intelligent and educated

Chinese have never heard of them at all, and perhaps stoutly deny their

existence. Sufficient inquiry, however, may not improbably develop here

and there specific cases of conformity to this custom, so repellent to our

thought, but to the Chinese natural and rational.

As already mentioned, in cases where it has been decided to adopt a son,

and where there are no suitable candidates within the family circle, a

lad may be taken from a different family, sometimes related, sometimes

connected, sometimes neither related nor connected, and sometimes he may

even be a total stranger merely "picked up." The result of this latter

practice especially is often very disappointing and painful for the couple

who have gone to so much trouble to find an heir, and who too often

discover that they have spent their strength in vain, and that filial

piety is not a commodity to be had for the asking.

But whatever its attendant evils, which are undoubtedly many and great,

the Chinese plan of adoption is always incomparably preferable to that of

bringing into the yard a "little wife." It is by no means singular that

the Chinese have given to the relations between the real wife and the

supplementary one, the significant name of "sipping vinegar."

We happen to have been personally acquainted with several families in

which a concubine had been introduced. In two of them, the secondary wives

had been bought because they were to be had at a cheap rate in a year of

famine. One of these poor creatures came one day running into the yard of

a Chinese family with whom the writer was living, screaming and

dishevelled, as the result of "vinegar sipping." The man who had taken her

openly reviled his mother in the most shameless way, upon her remonstrance

at the act.

In a second instance, a man past middle-life thought by this means to make

sure of a son, but was greatly disappointed in the result. He was in the

habit of inviting elderly Chinese women of his acquaintance to go to his

house, and "exhort" his wives to stop "sipping vinegar," a labour which

was attended with very negative results. When he died, the last wife was

driven out to return to her relatives, although for a country villager her

husband was reputed to be a fairly rich man. In cases where the concubine

has a son, in the event of her husband's death, if affairs are properly

managed, she has a portion of land set apart for her like any other wife.

In a third case a neighbour of the writer, a man in middle-life, had a

wife about forty years of age, two others having died, one of them leaving

a daughter now twenty years of age. The father was absent from home much

of the time, engaged in business in Peking. With Chinese thus situated, it

often appears to be a particularly happy solution of a difficulty to have

two wives, the legal wife at home, and the "small one" at the place where

the husband spends most of his time. When the man returned to his home, he

brought this secondary wife with him, an act very well adapted to promote

"vinegar sipping." This additional wife was a mere child much younger than

the daughter of her husband.

At the next New Year it was reported that the man would not allow his

proper wife to go to the ancestral graves, but insisted upon taking his

young concubine to do the sacrificing. Other injurious reports, true or

false, were circulated in regard to his behaviour toward his proper wife,

and his intentions in the future to abandon or divorce her, and these soon

reached the village of which she was a native. The result was a deputation

of a considerable number of elderly men from that village to the one in

which the husband lived. This deputation instituted proceedings by

summoning the head of the husband's clan to meet them. But a large number

of young men from that same village, having heard of the affair, could not

wait for the elders to adjust the matter by slow Chinese diplomacy, but

came in a body to the house of the husband, and without any ceremony made

an attack upon it, breaking down the barred door and throwing themselves

with violence upon the defenceless husband.

The attacking party had armed themselves with _awls_, but not, according

to their own account, with knives. It was late at night when the onslaught

was made, and it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The

husband was at once over-powered, and was subsequently found to have

seventeen awl-stabs on his chest, and two savage knife-cuts on his back,

penetrating to the lungs. It was alleged by the attacking party that the

latter wounds must have been made by some of the man's immediate

neighbours who were personal enemies, and who, hearing the outcry, rushed

in only to find that their enemy was defenceless and open to their attack

(which could not be proved against them), a circumstance of which they

took care to avail themselves. The attacking party having thus placed

themselves in the wrong, were obliged, upon being prosecuted at law, to

get an influential company of intermediaries to help them out of the

difficulty. This was at last accomplished according to the usual Chinese

method--a great deal of head knocking and a great many feasts for the

injured party.

Notwithstanding such instructive object-lessons as these, with which all

parts of China must to a greater or less extent abound, many of those who

think that they can afford to do so continue to repeat the experiment,

although the adage says: "If your wife is against it, do not take a

concubine." If this advice were to be adopted, it is not improbable that

the practice of concubinage in China would become practically extinct.

A traveller through China often notices in the villages along his route

that in the early morning most of the men seem to be assembled by the

roadside, each one squatting in front of his own door, all busily engaged

in shovelling in their food with chopsticks (appropriately called

"nimble-sons"), chatting meantime during the brief intervals with the

neighbour nearest. That the entire family should sit down to a table,

eating together and waiting for one another, after the manner of the

inhabitants of Western lands, is an idea so foreign to the ordinary

Chinese mind as to be almost incomprehensible.

This Chinese (and Oriental) habit is at once typical and suggestive. It

marks a wholly different conception of the family, and of the position of

woman therein, from that to which we are accustomed. It indicates the view

that while man is _yang_, the male, ruling, and chief element in the

universe, woman is _yin_, "dull, female, inferior." The conception of

woman as man's companion is in China almost totally lacking, for woman is

not the companion of man, and with society on its present terms she never

can be. A new bride introduced into a family has visible relations with no

one less than with her "husband." He would be ashamed to be seen talking

with her, and in general they seem in that line to have very little to be

ashamed of. In those unique instances in which the young couple have the

good sense to get acquainted with each other, and present the appearance

of actually exchanging ideas, this circumstance is the joke of the whole

family circle, and an insoluble enigma to all its members. We have heard

of cases in which members of a family where there was a newly married

couple, kept a string in which was tied a knot, every time that they were

heard to speak to one another. This cord would be subsequently exhibited

to them in ridicule of their intimacy!

A Chinese bride has no rational prospect of happiness in her new home,

though she may be well dressed, well fed, and perhaps not abused. She must

expect chronic repression through the long years during which she is for a

time in fact, and in theory always, a "child." Such rigorous discipline

may be necessary to fit her for the duties of her position, when she shall

have become herself a mother-in-law, and at the head of a company of

daughters-in-law, but it is a hard necessity. That there are sometimes

genuine attachments between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law it would

be a mistake to deny, for in such rare cases human nature shows its power

of rising superior to the conventional trammels in which it finds itself

by iron customs bound.

To defend herself against the fearful odds which are often pitted against

her, a Chinese wife has but two resources. One of them is her mother's

family, which, as we have seen, has no real power, and is too often to be

compared to the stern light of a ship, of no service for protection in

advance, and only throwing a lurid glare on the course which has been

passed over, but which cannot be retraced.

The other means of defence which a Chinese wife has at her command

is--herself. If she is gifted with a fluent tongue, especially if it is

backed by some of that hard common sense which so many Chinese exhibit, it

must be a very peculiar household in which she does not hold her own. Real

ability will assert itself, and such light as a Chinese woman possesses

will assuredly permeate every corner of the domestic bushel under which it

is of necessity hidden. If a Chinese wife has a violent temper, if she is

able at a moment's notice to raise a tornado about next to nothing, and to

keep it for an indefinite period blowing at the rate of a hundred miles an

hour, the position of such a woman is almost certainly secure. The most

termagant of mothers-in-law hesitates to attack a daughter-in-law who has

no fear of men or of demons, and who is fully equal to any emergency. A

Chinese woman in a fury is a spectacle by no means uncommon. But during

the time of the most violent paroxysms of fury, Vesuvius itself is not

more unmanageable by man.

If a Chinese husband happens to be a person of a quiet habit, with no

taste for tumults, he may possibly find himself yoked to a Xantippe who

never for an instant relaxes the reins of her dominion. In such cases the

prudent man will be glad to purchase "peace at any price," and whatever

the theory may be, the woman rules. Such instances are by no means

infrequent. This is witnessed as well by what one sees and hears in

Chinese society as well as by the many sayings which refer to the

"man-who-fears-what-is-inside," that is, the "hen-pecked man." Although it

is an accepted adage that

"A genuine cat will slay a mouse,

A genuine man will rule his house,"

yet there are numerous references to the punishment of

"kneeling-by-the-bedside-holding-a-lamp-on-the-head," which is the

penalty exacted by the regnant wife from her disobedient husband.

If a Chinese woman has the heaven-bestowed gift of being obstreperous to

such a degree that, as the sayings go, "people do not know east from

west"; that "men are worn out and horses exhausted"; that "the mountains

tremble and the earth shakes," this is unquestionably her surest

life-preserver. It is analagous to the South American toucan, which is

said to frighten away enemies by the mere exhibition of itself, they not

caring to wait for further and detailed proofs of its capacities of

execution. But if such an endowment has been denied her, her next best

resource is to pursue a course exactly the opposite, in all circumstances

and under all provocations _holding her tongue_. To most Chinese women,

this seems to be a feat as difficult as aA"rial navigation, but now and

then an isolated case shows that the difficult is not always the

impossible.

The present position of woman in China is a heritage of the remote past,

as is illustrated by the most ancient Chinese literature, an example of

which heads the present chapter. The instructions and the prohibitions in

the Book of Rites, one of the oldest and most venerated classical works,

embody fundamental principles which have always governed the Chinese in

their treatment of women. The essence of the Chinese classical teaching on

this subject is, that woman is as inferior to man as the earth is inferior

to heaven; and that she can never attain to full equality with man.

According to Chinese philosophy death and evil have their origin in the

_Yin_, or female principle of Chinese dualism, while life and prosperity

come from the subjection of it to the _Yang_, or male principle; hence it

is regarded as a law of nature to keep woman completely under the power of

man, and to allow her no will of her own. The result of this theory and

the corresponding practice is that the ideal for women is not development

and cultivation, but submission. Women can have no happiness of their own,

but must live and work for men, the only practical escape from this

degradation being found in becoming the mother of a son. Woman is bound by

the same laws of existence in the other world. She belongs to the same

husband, and is dependent for her happiness on the sacrifices offered by

her descendants.[5]

It is occasionally objected that to attribute the evils attending the lot

of woman in China to the moral system which has molded and preserved that

empire, is as inaccurate as it would be to hold Christianity responsible

for all the moral evils found in Christian lands. Between the two cases

there is, however, this fundamental difference. Every moral evil has from

the beginning been antagonized by Christianity. Those evils that still

flourish do so in spite of it, and against its unceasing efforts and

incessant protest. Christianity acting upon the relatively lofty

conception of woman, held by the Teutonic races, has gradually brought

about that elevation of the sex which we now witness in full development.

The theory of Confucianism, on the other hand, is both erroneous and

defective. It is therefore no exaggeration to charge a large part of the

evils from which Chinese women suffer to this efficient cause. It is

moreover highly important to remember that neither for evils arising from

wrong moral teaching nor for others, has Chinese ethics ever furnished

either preventive or remedy.

We must, therefore, regard the position of women in China, as the ultimate

outcome and a most characteristic fruitage of Confucianism. In our view it

has been a bitter fruit, and in recapitulation we would lay emphasis upon

seven deadly sins in the relation of that system to woman.

I. Viewed from a purely Chinese point of view there is no inherent

objection to the education of Chinese women. In one of the huge Chinese

encyclopedias, out of 1,628 books, 376 are devoted to famous women, and

of these four chapters treat of female knowledge, and seven others of the

literary productions of women, works which have been numerous and

influential. But as compared with the inconceivable numbers of Chinese

women in the past, these exceptional cases are but isolated twinkles in

vast interstellar spaces of dense darkness. Yet in view of the coming

regeneration of China, their value as historical precedents to antiquity

loving Chinese is beyond estimation.[6]

Rare and unimportant exceptions aside, Chinese women are provided with no

education. Their minds are left in a state of nature, until millions of

them are led to suppose that they have no minds at all, an opinion which

their fathers, husbands and brothers often do much to confirm, and upon

which they then habitually act.

II. The sale of wives and daughters. This comes about so naturally, and it

might almost be said so inevitably, when certain conditions prevail, that

it is taken by the Chinese as a matter of course. Except in years of

famine it appears in some parts of the empire to be rare, but in other

parts it is the constant and the normal state of things for daughters to

be as really sold as are horses and cattle.

There are sections of northern China in which it is not uncommon for a man

who has contracted debts which he cannot otherwise pay, to part with a

daughter as a last resort. But there are other districts where the

practice cannot be exceptional, as is evident from the great number of

girls who, one is told, have been procured from this region. If the

Chinese themselves are questioned about the matter, the fact is always

admitted, the custom is reprobated, but the universally conclusive inquiry

is propounded: "_What help is there for it?_" In the present condition of

the empire this interrogatory is unanswerable.

III. Too early and too universal marriages. A considerable part of the

unhappiness caused by Chinese marriages may fairly be charged to the

immaturity of the victims. To treat children as if they were adults, while

at the same time treating them as children who require the same watch and

ward as other children, does not appear to be a rational procedure, nor

can it be claimed that it is justified by its results. That a new pair

constitute a distinct entity to be dealt with independently, is a

proposition which Confucianism treats with scorn, if indeed it ever

entertains such a conception at all. The compulsory marriage of all girls

forces all Chinese society into cast-iron grooves, and leaves no room for

exceptional individual development. It throws suspicion around every

isolated struggle against this galling bondage, and makes the unmarried

woman seem a personified violation of the decrees of heaven and of the

laws of man.

IV. Infanticide of female infants. This is a direct, if not a legitimate

result of the tenet that male children are absolutely indispensable,

applied in a social system where dire poverty is the rule, and where an

additional mouth frequently means impending starvation. In a chapter in

her "Pagoda Shadows," on "The Extent of a Great Crime," Miss Fielde

combines a great variety of testimony taken from several different

provinces, in the following paragraph. "I find that 160 Chinese women, all

over fifty years of age, had borne 631 sons, and 538 daughters. Of the

sons, 366, or nearly sixty per cent., had lived more than ten years; while

of the daughters only 205, or thirty-eight per cent., had lived ten years.

The 160 women, according to their own statements, had destroyed 158 of

their daughters; but none had ever destroyed a boy. As only four women had

reared more than three girls, the probability is that the number of

infanticides confessed to is considerably below the truth. I have

occasionally been told by a woman that she had forgotten just how many

girls she had had, more than she wanted. The greatest number of

infanticides owned to by any one woman is eleven."

Infanticide will never cease in China, until the notion that the dead are

dependent for their happiness upon sacrifices offered to them by the

living shall have been totally overthrown.

V. Secondary wives. Concubinage is the natural result of the Confucian

theory of ancestral worship. The misery which it has caused and still

causes in China is beyond comprehension. Nothing can uproot it but a decay

of faith in the assumption underlying all forms of worship of the dead.

VI. Suicides of wives and daughters. The preceding causes, operating

singly and in combination, are wholly sufficient to account for the number

of suicides among Chinese women. The wonder rather is that there are not

more. But whoever undertakes to collect facts on this subject for any

given district will not improbably be greatly surprised at the

extraordinary prevalence of this practice. It is even adopted by children,

and for causes relatively trifling. At times it appears to spread, like

the smallpox, and the thirst for suicide becomes virtually an epidemic. As

already mentioned, according to the native newspapers, there are parts of

China in which young girls band themselves into a secret league to commit

suicide within a certain time after they have been betrothed or married.

The wretchedness of the lives to which they are condemned is thoroughly

appreciated in advance, and fate is thus effectually checkmated. It would

be wrong to overstate the evils suffered by woman in China, evils which

have indeed many alleviations, and which are not to be compared to those

of her sisters in India or in Turkey. But after all abatements have been

made, it remains true that the death-roll of suicides is the most

convincing proof of the woes endured by Chinese women.

VII. Overpopulation. The whole Chinese race is and always has been given

up with a single devotion to the task of raising up a posterity, to do

for the fathers what the fathers have done for the grandfathers. In this

particular line, they have realized Wesley's conception of the ideal

church in its line, where, as he remarked, the members are "All at it, and

always at it." War, famine, pestilence sweep off millions of the

population, but a few decades of peace seem to repair the ravages of the

past, which are lost to sight, like battlefields covered with wide areas

of waving grain.

However much we may admire the recuperative power of the Chinese people as

a whole and individually, it is difficult not to feel righteous

indignation toward a system which violates those beneficent laws of nature

which would mercifully put an end to many branches of families when such

branches are unfitted to survive. It is impossible to contemplate with

equanimity the deliberate, persistent, and uniform propagation of poverty,

vice, disease and crime, which ought rather to be surrounded with every

restriction to prevent its multiplication, and to see this propagation of

evil and misery done, too, with an air of virtue, as if this were of

itself a kind of religion, often indeed the only form of religion in which

the Chinese take any vital interest.

It is this system which loads down the rising generation with the

responsibility for feeding and clothing tens of thousands of human beings

who ought never to have been born, and whose existence can never be other

than a burden to themselves, a period of incessant struggle without

respite and without hope.

To the intelligent foreigner, the most prominent fact in China is the

poverty of its people. There are too many villages to the square mile, too

many families to the village, too many "mouths" to the family. Wherever

one goes, it is the same weary tale with interminable reiteration.

Poverty, poverty, poverty, always and evermore poverty. The empire is

broad, its unoccupied regions are extensive, and its undeveloped resources

undoubtedly vast. But in what way can these resources be so developed as

to benefit the great mass of the Chinese people? By none, with which we

are acquainted, or of which we can conceive, without a radical disturbance

of the existing conditions. The seething mass of over-population must be

drawn off to the regions where it is needed, and then only will there be

room for the relief of those who remain.

[Illustration: ONE OF CHINA'S PARASITES--A BEGGAR.]

[Illustration: ONE OF HER SOURCES OF STRENGTH--A CARPENTER.]

It is impossible to do anything for people who are wedged together after

the manner of matches in a box. Imagine a surgeon making the attempt to

set the broken leg of a man in an omnibus in motion, which at the time

contained twenty other people, most of whom also had broken legs which

likewise require setting! The first thing to do would be to get them all

unloaded, and to put them where they could be properly treated, with room

for the treatment, and space for breathing. It is, we repeat, not easy to

perceive how even the most advanced political economy can do anything of

permanent benefit for the great mass of the Chinese without a

redistribution of the surplus population. But at this point practical

Confucianism intervenes, and having induced the begetting of this swarm of

human beings, it declares that they must not abandon the graves of their

ancestors, who require their sacrifices, but must in the same spot

continue to propagate their posterity to continue the interminable

process.

The world is still large, and it has, and for ages will doubtless continue

to have, ample room for all the additional millions which its existing

millions can produce. The world was never so much in need of the Chinese

as to-day, and never, on the other hand, were the Chinese more in need of

the world. But if China is to hold its own, much more if it is to advance

as other nations have advanced and do advance, it must be done under the

lead of new forces. Confucianism has been a mighty power to build up, and

to conserve. But Confucianism with its great merits has committed many

"Deadly Sins," and of those sins it must ultimately suffer the penalty.

Confucianism as a developing force is a force, which is spent. Sooner or

later it must give way to something stronger, wiser, and better.

XXIV

THE MONOTONY AND VACUITY OF VILLAGE LIFE

It is difficult to project ourselves backward to the times of our

great-grandfathers when mails were carried on horseback, the postman

leisurely knitting stockings as he rode. Yet however slow, measured by

modern standards, the rural life of a century and more ago, it was a

varied life, ultimately anastomosing with the great currents of the age.

The rate of progress of thought has no necessary correlation to the

versatility or the virility of mental processes. Our ancestors may perhaps

have been peasants, but they were an integral part of the land in which

they dwelt, and they rose and fell with the national tides of life like

boats in a harbor.

A Chinese village is physically and intellectually a fixture. Could one

gaze backward through a vista of five hundred years at the panorama which

that vast stretch of modern history would present, he would probably see

little more and little less than he sees to-day. The buildings now

standing are not indeed five hundred years old, but they are just such

houses as half a millennium ago occupied the same sites, "similar and

similarly situated." Some families that then lived in adobe dwellings now

flourish under roofs of tile in houses of brick. Other families have

become extinct. Now and then a new one may have appeared, but this is

irregular and exceptional. Those who now subsist in this collection of

earth-built abodes are the lineal descendants of those who lived there

when Columbus discovered America. The descendants are doing just what

their ancestors did, no more, no less, no other. They cultivate the same

fields in the same way (albeit a few of the crops are modern); they go to

the same markets in the same invariable order; buy, sell, and wear the

same articles; marry and are given in marriage according to the same

pattern.

It was a shrewd suggestion of a philosopher that if we wish to understand

a people, we should note what things they take for granted. The

pre-suppositions of a Chinese villager are the same as those of his

ancestry near and remote. There is in a Chinese village as such no

intellectual life. If there happen to be literary men living in it, they

form a little clique by themselves, largely out of relation to their

neighbours, and likewise to most of their own families. It is an ancient

aphorism that "Scholars talk of books--butchers of pigs." We have already

abundantly seen that the processes of Chinese education are narrowing

processes, fitting the accomplished student to run only in grooves. It is

almost incredible how narrow these ruts become. Each literary examination

is a crisis at which one either becomes a graduate or does not; in either

case the result, whether appertaining to the student himself, the pupils

whom he has coached, or his own sons, is contemplated purely as a personal

and an individual matter. It is a literary lottery upon which much has

been risked, and out of which it is desirable to recover if possible a

prize. If that is out of the question all interest in the literary

business is at an end.

Unlike his representative in Western lands, the Chinese village scholar is

not a centre or source of illumination to others. His life is the ideal of

"subjectivity"--the quintessential essence of selfishness. It is a

venerable superstition of the Chinese that though the graduate does not

emerge from his own door, he knows the affairs of all under heaven. As we

have already had occasion to point out, among the many rhetorical

exaggerations of Chinese proverbial philosophy this aphorism may be held

to take the lead. The typical scholar knows nothing whatever about

all-under-heaven. He has no decided opinions one way or the other as to

whether the earth is round or flat, for it is no concern of his. Neither

is the current history of his own country. National affairs belong to the

mandarins who get their living by them; what have such matters to do with

a literary man who has taken his degree?

The writer is acquainted with an ex-schoolmaster who went into a business

which often led him to a distance from home. About a year after peace had

been concluded with Japan, this much-travelled merchant inquired during

the progress of a call if we could inform him how the war turned out,

explaining that he had heard such contradictory accounts at the capital of

his province and at Tientsin that he knew not what to believe, and had

judiciously held his mind entirely in suspense until he had an opportunity

to see his foreign friend, who might, he thought, know for certain!

Linked with this dense ignorance and more impenetrable indifference is a

most unbounded credulity. Faith in the _fAȘng-shui_, or geomancy of a

district is still as firmly rooted as ever in the minds of the leading

literary men of the empire, as is shown by memorials in the _Peking

Gazette_ calling for changes in buildings, the erection of lucky towers,

etc., because the number of successful competitors is not greater.

A scholar who thinks it necessary to beat drums in order to save the sun

in an eclipse from the "Dog" which is devouring it, receives with implicit

faith the announcement that in Western lands the years are a thousand days

in length, with four moons all the time. If some one who has dabbled a

little in chemistry reports to him a rudimentary experiment in which

carbonic dioxide poured down a trough extinguishes a row of burning

candles, he is at once reminded that The Master refused to speak of feats

of magic, and he dismisses the whole topic with the verdict: "Of course it

was done by malign spirits."

In this fertile soil every kind of mischievous tale takes root downward,

and in due time bears its bitter fruit, as many foreigners in China know

to their cost. Were it not for the credulity of the literary men in China,

riots against foreigners would seldom or never occur. It is a melancholy

fact that vast numbers of this class, especially in the rural districts,

are profoundly convinced of the truth of the worst allegations made

against the men of the West, while still greater numbers are absolutely

indifferent to the matter unless it happens in some way to affect

themselves.

The learned and semi-intelligent vacuity of the village scholar is more

than matched by the ignorant vacuity of his illiterate neighbours. If he

happens to have travelled, the latter has indubitably the better education

of the two, for the reason that it is based (as far as it goes) upon

facts. But if he is a typical villager he has never been anywhere to speak

of, and knows nothing in particular. His conversation is filled with

unutterable inanities till he is gathered to his fathers. In every Chinese

village one sees, except at the busiest times, groups of men sitting in

the sunshine in winter, in the shade in summer, on some friendly stick of

timber, and clustered in the little temples which constitute the village

exchange. Even in the depth of winter they continue to huddle together in

a vain effort to be comfortable as well as sociable, and chatter, chatter

all the day, or until it is time to go to their meals. The past, present,

and future state of the weather, the market prices, local gossip, and

especially the details of the latest lawsuit form the warp and woof of

this unending talk. What the Magistrate asked of Chang when he was

examined, what Chang replied, what Wang retaliated, as well as what the

Official had to say to _that_, with interminable iterations and profuse

commentary furnish the most interesting and the most inexhaustible themes

for discourse.

For any official changes unless it be that of his own District Magistrate

the villager cares very little. At a time when it was supposed that His

Majesty Kuang HsA1/4 had been made way with, the writer remarked to a Chinese

friend that there was reason to fear that here was an empire without an

Emperor. A villager of the sluggish type just mentioned, who had heard

nothing of the news from Peking, inquired of what country the observation

had been made, and when the answer had been given that it was the Central

Empire, he reflected for a moment, and merely replied, "Oh", with the air

of one who had feared it might be worse! Yet the rustic of this class is

shrewd in his own affairs, and by no means deficient in practical

intelligence. He is passionately fond of hearing story-tellers and of

witnessing plays having for their heroes the great men of the Three

Kingdoms seventeen hundred years ago, and on occasion he might be able to

tell us much about these characters and their deeds. But modern and

contemporaneous history is out of his line, and lacks flavour. It is most

literally none of his business, and he knows nor cares nothing about it.

The whole map of Asia might be reconstructed, and it would have for him no

interest whatever, provided it did not increase his taxes nor raise the

price of grain.

We have already mentioned that the villager who has been far from home is

a conspicuous exception to the general vacuity of mind so often to be met.

He has a rich and a varied experience which he is willing although not

forward to relate. But it is a striking fact that the man of this sort

when he returns to go abroad no more, tends speedily to relapse into the

prevailing type. He may have been in every one of the Eighteen Provinces,

or possibly in foreign lands, yet on his settling down to his old ways he

has no more curiosity to know what is going on elsewhere, than a man who

had at some time in his life been shipwrecked would have to know what had

become of the schools of fish with which for a time he was in fortuitous

proximity. When it is considered how vast a proportion of the whole

population live in villages, and when we contemplate in detail the

meagreness and poverty of the mental output, an impressive conception is

gained of the intellectual barrenness of the Flowery Empire. The phenomena

which we everywhere see are the outward expression of inner forces which

have been at work for more than two thousand years. The longer they are

considered and the more thoroughly they are understood the more profoundly

will it be seen and felt that the "answer to Confucianism is China."

XXV

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF THE CHINESE FAMILY

The family is the unit of Chinese social life and, as we have often had

occasion to observe, the Chinese Family is a highly complex organization,

with many aspects which sometimes appear mutually contradictory. To the

consideration of one of these polyhedral faces we now turn, asking the

reader to bear well in mind that while what we have to say contains

important truth, this is but one out of many points of view.

The instability of the equilibrium of the Chinese family arises from its

constitution, from its environment, and from the relation between the two.

Let us first glance at some of the exterior causes. In a large portion of

the empire the rain-fall is more or less uncertain, rendering famine a

perpetual possibility. Within the past quarter of a century foreigners in

China have had superabundant opportunities to study the phenomena of

famine upon a great scale. The misery thus occasioned is inconceivable,

but we wish to refer only to the resultant disruption of families. Nothing

is more common than to find that the father has gone to some distant

region hoping to secure a bare sustenance leaving the wife and children to

shift for themselves. This is not because he does not care for them, nor

because he desires the separation, but because there is literally "no help

for it."

Large portions of the empire are liable to inundation, often with little

or no warning. Those who contrive to save themselves wander off whither

they can, generally in family groups, but not infrequently one by one.[7]

Children are born and children die on these haphazard journeys nowhither.

The elders die too, and sometimes a marriageable girl is disposed of for

life to some husband who could not afford the expense of an ordinary

wedding. It is proverbial that there are no ceremonies for a second

marriage, and whenever a family is broken up, it is highly probable that

all the widows will soon find partners, the union liable to be

discontinued whenever there is again a scarcity of food.

Political disturbances which often rise to the dignity of small rebellions

operate in the same way as famines and floods. In any of these cases

families once widely dispersed are not likely again to recombine.

It is not in times of special stress only that families are parted. In

several of the provinces of China a considerable proportion of the adult

males earn their living at great distances from home.

Myriads of Chinese from the northern portion of China get such a

livelihood as they can in Manchuria or elsewhere beyond the Great Wall,

hundreds or thousands of miles from home, to which multitudes never

return. Innumerable Chinese mothers never learn what has become of their

sons, who went away in early youth to be heard of no more. Communication

is irregular and uncertain, and uniformly untrustworthy. No wonder the

current adage declares that when the son has gone a thousand miles the

mother grieves.[8] The Chinese Enoch Arden perhaps returns from an

absence of possibly ten or it may be twenty years, enters his house,

throws down his bundle and without a question or a greeting to any one,

proceeds to take a solacing smoke. He may have been away so long that no

one recognizes him, and perhaps he is taken for a tramp and warned off.

But he merely replies "Why should I not make myself at home in my own

house?" and resumes his smoking, leaving details to be filled in later.

The equilibrium of every Chinese family is liable to be disturbed by an

evil which may not unlikely work more mischief than an ordinary

earthquake--to wit, a lawsuit. There is not a day in the life of any

Chinese when his peace, his prosperity, and possibly his life may not be

endangered by some complication for which he is not in any way

responsible, but from which escape is practically impossible. Let not the

reader suppose that most Chinese are entangled in the meshes of the law,

for this is not the case. But there is always the unavoidable liability. A

moment of uncontrollable passion on the part of any one of a score of

persons, may precipitate a crisis involving the expenditure of the greater

part of one's resources, subjection to protracted detention in jail, to

torture, to punishment of immeasurable barbarity, and to virtual

starvation in prison unless the means of the family are drained to prevent

it. Not every lawsuit has within it such phenomena as these, but they are

everywhere potential, for no one can predict where or how any suit will

end. It is not alone the principals who suffer in cases of this sort, for,

as the current saying runs, "When one family has trouble none of the four

neighbours are in peace."

Attention has been repeatedly called to the familiar fact that practically

no Chinese can maintain financial independence. To a foreigner nothing is

more amazing than the reckless manner in which a debt is contracted which

subsequently proves to have within it the fruitful seeds of ruin for the

whole family. It is vain to ask why the money was borrowed. One might as

well inquire why one is so wet who has been out all night in a Scotch

mist. Ages of experience have made the Chinese relentless creditors, and

woe to him who owes but cannot pay. China is full of small dealers with a

limited capital, who do well enough in ordinary years. A very small

percentage contrives to get so far ahead as to buy land, and thus the

family is rooted to the soil. But a far larger number lose the capital

invested, are obliged to sell their little holdings to pay their dues, and

thenceforth they join the great, hopeless, landless class. A single

failure of one important crop may carry with it consequences of this kind

to many small dealers. In China the man or the family which is loaded with

a debt beyond the recuperative power of the debtor, finds itself upon an

oiled toboggan-slide at the bottom of which is remediless ruin.

In the families of the poor there is no margin of any kind for sickness,

but sickness comes impartially to every grade of life. When the

bread-winner is laid aside, when the mother of a little flock is no longer

able to keep the simple domestic machinery in motion, then indeed trouble

has arrived. If a young married woman is sick, the first step is to send

for her mother; for ordinarily no one in the family into which she has

married has the time or disposition to take care of her, least of all the

husband, who regards himself as aggrieved by her disability, and who is

often far more inclined to expect the family of his wife to bear all the

resultant expenses, than to meet them himself. One of the legal occasions

for divorce is chronic illness, although we have never heard of a single

instance where formal steps were taken for that reason. It is a current

saying that in the presence of a long continued sickness there is no

filial son. How great the family strain often is, there are many things

to prove. In the midst of it all one is sometimes agreeably surprised to

find an amount of tenderness and forbearance worthy of all praise. But in

the constitution of Chinese society these exhibitions are and must be in a

great minority. A man well known to the writer in speaking of the serious

symptoms of a disease of his wife, remarked that he had asked her how long

she expected to keep up the groans called forth by the intolerable agonies

of terrible and incurable ulcers, and that for his part he had offered to

provide her with a rope that she might relieve him of his inconvenience,

and herself of her miseries, though upon being remonstrated with for such

an inhuman view of the case, he frankly admitted that his troubles had

made him "stupid." It is a significant saying in such instances that the

sufferer although poor has contracted a rich man's malady.

The disintegrating forces which operate in the Chinese family are more

efficient in the homes of the poor than of the rich, because there is less

power of resistance. But there are two of these agencies which imply a

certain degree of prosperity ere they can be fully developed, the gambling

and the opium habit, twin vices of the Chinese race. Each leads by swift

and relentless steps to destruction, and in each case there ensues at last

what is virtually a paralysis of the will, making amendment impossible.

Against these gigantic evils there is in Chinese society no safeguard

whatever, no preventive influences, and no remedies. It would be easy to

illustrate in terrible detail how these forces act insidiously,

universally and irresistibly. The wonder is that the track of devastation

is not even wider. They take rank among the most destructive

instrumentalities in Chinese social life. It is very rare indeed to hear

of reform from either of these vices, when there has been no impulse

imparted from without, and it is rarer that there is any one who can and

who will impart it.

To this dark catalogue of maleficent forces must be added one more,

violation of social morality. To what extent this prevails in any given

place it is impossible for any Chinese--much less for any foreigner--to

say with authority. There is among the people, despite their loquacity--an

instinct of reticence in every way commendable. Little value is placed

upon infant life. The air is always full of rumors and suspicious

whispers, so that the judicious will believe nothing of which there is not

positive evidence. The Chinese code of morals is a lofty one, both in

theory and in practice. The social arrangements are all made with a

carefulness which to the Occidental seems mere prudery, but which the

accumulated experience of millenniums has convinced the Chinese to be not

only wise, but indispensable.

Yet in the conditions of everyday life it is simply impossible that

theoretical regulations should be reduced to practice. The elderly women

die, and courtyards are left from sheer necessity in a condition to invite

catastrophe. Against a bad father-in-law especially if he be a

widower--there is in the Chinese social economy no provision and no

defence. It is proverbial that insinuations lurk about the dwelling-place

of widows. In a word it may almost be said that no one has absolute

confidence in any one else.

In spite of all apparent evidence to the contrary, there is adequate

reason to believe that Chinese social morality at its best is fully equal

to that of any Western land. Yet it is necessary to take careful note of

the circumstance that the consequences of a lapse from virtue are

destitute of the ameliorations with which we have become familiar. The

principal concern of every one interested is the "face" of the family

involved, and to save this imaginary self-respect it may be necessary for

some one to commit suicide, which is done with the smallest provocation at

all times. No Chinese is ever quite free from the dread that some one of

his household may take this step. Provision is expressly made in Chinese

law for the punishment of those who can be proved to have "urged to

death" others; a crime which is treated as manslaughter. This fact alone

would serve as a gauge of the wide interval between the civilizations of

the west and of China.

All Chinese may be said to have strongly developed an attachment to the

family in which they were born, and most of them have also strong family

affections running in specific and limited channels, and by no means

evenly distributed. They share with the rest of the race a desire to make

their families perpetual, and when they fail, as they so frequently do,

their failure is the more conspicuous by reason of their inalienable

attachment to their natal soil. In order more deeply to explore some of

the causes of their want of success, it will be necessary to go farther

below the surface of the Chinese family.

XXVI

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNITY

To give a correct diagnosis of the inner causes of the disunity of Chinese

social and family life without at the same time grossly misrepresenting

both the Chinese character and society, is a hopeless undertaking. Merely

to note even the most authentic and typical facts is to convey an

impression which is incorrect because it is not proportional. Every family

contains within itself the seeds of disunity, and if they do not in all

cases produce their appropriate harvest, it is because they are mercifully

blighted or counteracted in their development.

Of each Chinese family a full half has had or will have interests largely

at variance with those of the other half. Every Chinese wife came by no

choice of her own from some other family, being suddenly and irrevocably

grafted as a wild stock upon the family tree of her husband. As we have

already seen, she is not received with enthusiasm, much less with

affection (the very idea of which in such a connection never enters any

Chinese mind) but at best with mild toleration, and not infrequently with

aggressive criticism. She forms a link with another set of interests from

which by disruption she has indeed been dissevered, but where her

attachments are centred. The affection of most Chinese children for their

mothers is very real and lasting. The death of the mother is for a

daughter especially the greatest of earthly calamities. Filial piety in

its cruder and more practical aspects constantly leads the married

daughter to wish to transfer some of the property of the husband's family

to that of her mother. The temptation to do so is often irresistible, and

sometimes continues through life, albeit with many dramatic checks. The

Chinese speak of this habit in metaphorical phrase as "a leak at the

bottom" which is proverbially hard to stop. It is a current saying that of

ten married daughters, nine pilfer more or less. It is not uncommon to

hear this practice assigned as one of the means by which a family is

reduced to the verge of poverty. The writer once had occasion to acquaint

a Chinese friend with the fact that a connection by marriage had recently

died. He replied thoughtfully: "It is well she is dead; she was

gluttonous, she was lazy; and beside she stole things for her mother!"

Visits to the mother's family constitute by far the most substantial joys

in the life of a young Chinese married woman. It is her constant effort to

make them as numerous as possible, and it is the desire of her husband's

family to restrict them, since her services are thus partially lost to

them. To prevent them from being wholly so, she is frequently loaded down

with twice as much sewing as she could do in the time allowed, and sent

off with a troop of accompanying children, if she has reached so advanced

a stage as to be a mother of a flock. An invasion of this kind is often

regarded with open dissatisfaction by her father and brothers, and what

could be more natural than her desire to appease them by the spoils which

she may have wrested from the Philistines?

After the death of her mother the situation has materially altered. The

sisters-in-law have now no restraint on their criticisms upon her

appearance with her hungry brood, and her whole stay may not improbably be

a struggle to maintain what she regards as her rights. It is one of the

many pathetic sights with which Chinese society abounds to witness the

effort to seem to keep alive a spark of fire in coals which have visibly

gone out. Not to have any "mother's family" to which to go is regarded as

the depth of misery for a married woman, since it is a proclamation that

she no longer has any one to stand up for her in case she should be

abused. To discontinue altogether the visits thither is to some extent a

loss of face, which every Chinese feels keenly. We have known an old

woman left absolutely alone in the world, obliged at the age of

ninety-four to gather her own fuel and do whatever she wanted done for

herself, except draw water, which was furnished her by a distant relative

as an act of special grace. Her poverty was so abject that she was driven

to mix fine earth with the little meal that sufficed for her scanty food,

that it might last the longer. Yet this poor creature would sometimes be

missed from her place, when it was reported that she had gone on a visit

to her "mother's family" consisting of the great-grandchildren of those

whom she had known in youth!

By the time a married woman had reached middle life her interest in her

original home may have greatly weakened. There are now young marriageable

girls of her own growing up, each of whom in turn repeats the experience

of her mother. To their fathers and also to their brothers these girls are

at once a problem and a menace. Could the birth-rate of girls be

determined by ballot of all the males of full age, it is probable that in

a few generations the Chinese race would become extinct. The expression

"commodity-on-which-money-has-been-lost," is a common periphrasis for a

girl. They no sooner learn a little sewing, cooking, etc., than they are

exported, and it is proverbial that water spilled on the ground is a

synonym for a daughter. "Darnel will not do for the grain-tax, and

daughters will never support their mothers." These modes of speech

represent modes of thought, and the prevailing thought, although happily

not the only thought of the Chinese people.

Girls as a rule have next to no opportunities for cultivating friendships

with one another. The readiness with which under favourable condition such

attachments are formed and perpetuated, shows how great a loss is their

persistent absence. When it is considered that each Chinese family

consists not of a man and his wife and their children, but of married

sons, and of their several wives, each one introduced into the circle in

the same compulsory way, each with a strong and an uncurbed will, yet

powerless to assert herself except by harsh speeches and bad temper, it is

evident that the result is not likely to be unity.

In the eye of Chinese law brothers are equal, and though the elder has

some advantages, a portion larger than that of the others is not one of

them. Sometimes the young married pair are given an outfit, say of cotton,

for spinning and weaving, and are thenceforth expected to support

themselves by this capital and their own added labour. Not infrequently an

unequal distribution of the land is made among several brothers by the

father while living, a wrong for which there is no remedy other than

remonstrance. Neither if the father should conceive the idea of depriving

a son of any portion at all in the land, is there effective redress.

Should the property be held in common according to Chinese traditions, it

is a physical, a psychological, and a moral impossibility that there

should not be ceaseless friction among so many claimants for what is often

at best a most inadequate support.

The Chinese ideal is to hold the family property in common indefinitely.

But the Chinese themselves are conscious that theirs is not an ideal

world, so that division of the land cannot always be postponed. It not

infrequently happens that one of the sons becomes discontented, and

commissions one of the neighbours to tell the father that it is time to

effect a division. At such times the family affairs are put into the hands

of third parties who are supposed to be entirely disinterested, but

sometimes the family has itself so well under control as to be able to

dispense with this important assistance. The middlemen who have to conduct

operations, begin by taking an inventory of the numerous pieces of land,

the buildings, etc., which they then appraise roughly, endeavouring to

separate these assets into as many portions as there are to be shares. A

certain part of the land is set aside for "nourishing the old age" of the

parents; and perhaps another section is reserved for the wedding expenses

of unmarried daughters or younger sons. What remains is to be divided,

which is accomplished by grouping the portions, and writing the

descriptions of the several pieces of land, houses, etc., on pieces of

paper which are rolled up and placed in a rice-bowl. This is shaken up and

it is a courtesy to allow the youngest son to draw first. Whatever is

noted on his bit of paper represents his share, and so on until all are

drawn. The household furniture, water-jars, utensils of every kind, and

all the grain and fuel on hand must be all taken out in public in the

presence of the middlemen to be sure that nothing is secreted. We have

known a particularly obstreperous son to come to his father's house the

day after a division, and under pretence of looking for something which he

had lost, to feel in every jar and pot to be sure that no beans or millet

had escaped him. In a family where harmony reigns, all this trouble is

avoided, but such are altogether exceptional. Shrewd Chinese estimate that

out of every ten families which "divide" seven, if not nine, will have a

domestic tempest as a concomitant, and these storms vary all the way from

a short, sharp squall, to a hurricane which leaves everything in a wreck.

It is the Chinese theory that parents are to be taken care of in old age

by their children either in combination or in rotation. But cases in which

aged mothers have a portion to themselves, doing all their own cooking and

most of the other necessary work are everywhere numerous. A Westerner is

constantly struck with the undoubted fact that the mere act of dividing a

property seems to extinguish all sense of responsibility whatever for the

nearest of kin. It is often replied when we ask why a Chinese does not

help his son or his brother who has a large family and nothing in the

house to eat, "We have _divided_ some time ago." The real explanation is

perhaps to be found in the accumulated exasperations of the larger part of

a lifetime, once delivered from which, a Chinese feels that he can

judiciously expend his energies in looking out for Number One, leaving

the rest of the series to do the same as best they may.

If a member of a family is absent when a division is made, it is common to

hear that advantage has been taken of that fact to assign to him a portion

which he would not have quietly accepted had he been present. This is

particularly the case with the family debts, often aggregating a large

sum. Sometimes a young man is forced to begin life weighted down with

several hundred thousand cash worth of these liabilities due to some

unprofitable partnership of his father with his uncles--which may have

extended over a period of perhaps many years.

Another most undesirable but unavoidable asset is "empty grain-tax land!"

This means a liability to pay the tax on land which is non-existent, but

which has been made to appear to exist by mismeasurements in former years,

either by accident or design. Suppose, for example, that a family has a

hundred acres of land, which has to be sold in small pieces from time to

time as occasion arises. Each surveying party works from such indefinite

boundaries as the stump of an aged mulberry bush to another stump which

may prove to be missing. The one who buys the land will use his best

efforts to see that he gets good measure, which it is no concern of the

measurers to refuse. No one knows exactly what is left until some final

measurement becomes necessary, when it often appears that there is a

shortage of a considerable amount. From deficits like this there arises

the necessity of paying "empty taxes," and though the tax itself is

sufficiently solid and substantial, there is no way known to Chinese

practice by which such injustice can be rectified. The son who finds

himself saddled with this sort of a burden is not likely to contribute to

the harmony of the household in future, and were he ever so much inclined

to bury the matter in oblivion and "eat a dumb man's loss," his wife would

never stop talking about it, unless she chanced to be dumb herself. A

complete catalogue of the possible and indeed inevitable occasions which

produce family alienations and bitterness would of itself fill a volume,

but those which have been suggested may serve as samples of them all.

It deserves mention that when the strain has reached the breaking point,

especially when it is difficult for the aggrieved individual to go off to

a great distance and escape his woes, he is often seized by the idea of

administering poison to the person hated. Were the list of toxic

substances available to the Chinese larger, poisoning would be far more

frequent than at present. As it is cases are everywhere to be heard of,

and occasionally foreigners are the victims.

While this chapter was in preparation a Chinese friend called to ask

advice. He had a nephew thirty-six years of age, who until recently had

never been married. He is a dull witted man, with very little property,

and had never been regarded as a desirable match. About five months

previous to the recent occurrence which led to the request for advice, a

girl aged sixteen was found who had a deformity in one limb preventing her

from making a match. A go-between proposed her for this bachelor and it

was arranged that he should pay her family eight strings of cash for

"bridal outfit," and in due time the marriage took place. As might have

been expected it was a conspicuously infelicitous one. On the twenty-sixth

day of the first moon of the current year, the husband ate a bowl of

millet which seemed to him to have a singular taste, but he did not

suspect poison until he had taken it all, when he saw arsenic at the

bottom. After violent retching he was somewhat relieved. The next day but

one the same thing occurred, the symptoms being graver. He vigorously

remonstrated, and his bride left for her home some miles away. The husband

was now very ill, and was waited on for some days by his uncle, at the

times of whose visit for advice the nephew's life was supposed to be out

of danger. The uncle wanted to know what should be done about it. In an

empire where "talkativeness" is a legal ground for divorce, it naturally

appeared to an Occidental that repeated, albeit clumsy attempts at

poisoning might be equally so. But the uncle explained that there was a

sister-in-law who objected. Why? Apparently because having invested eight

strings of cash in a wife it was a pity to lose her for a mere trifle like

this! The matter was put into the hands of peace-talkers, who arranged

that the relative who had brought the bride the arsenic should kotow to

the man poisoned by the arsenic, and that the family of the bride should

pay the injured husband fifteen strings of cash wherewith to recruit his

depleted vitality. Meantime the bride remained at her mother's home, where

one of the women was said to have beaten her a little. She is not

divorced, her husband being reluctant to proceed to such extremities, in

part on account of the large investment originally made, and in part for

fear of ridicule. In due time she will probably be sent back to his home

to resume her experiments in the art of making home happy.

Thus far we have spoken of disunity of Chinese families as promoted by

that intense subjectivity to which we give the name selfishness. There

are, however, many other factors to be taken into account, which have to

do with racial habits and race traits.

To affirm that every Chinese is a natural liar is a grievous error. On the

contrary we believe the Chinese to be by far the most truthful of

Asiatics. Yet there can be no doubt that disingenuousness is to them a

second nature. It runs through the warp and woof of their life.

A witness in a Chinese lawsuit (where veracity is more than ordinarily

important) usually begins his mixture of three-tenths fact with

seven-tenths fiction with the remark: "I will not deceive Your Honour." In

this he speaks the truth, for His Honour knows perfectly well that the

witness is lying, and the witness knows that His Honour knows it. The only

question is in regard to the percentage of falsehood, and as to which

particular statements come under that head. The same principles are in

operation in the family life as in court. Most husbands know better than

to confide the real state of their affairs to their wives. Children in

turn constantly conceal from their parents what ought to be known, and are

themselves deceived whenever it becomes convenient to do so. A Chinese

woman known to the writer when a mere child was one day told by her mother

that she must not go upon the street to play as usual, but must remain in

the house and have her clothes changed. This was done, and before she knew

it, she was thrust into a sedan-chair, and was on the way to the house of

her "husband," for this was her marriage! The conditions which would make

such an occurrence possible, would produce quite naturally many phenomena

of a disagreeable description. It is a popular adage that "She who knows

how to behave as a daughter-in-law will prevaricate at both her homes,

while the inexpert daughter-in-law reveals what she knows at each of

them"--and is in constant trouble in consequence.

Despite their disadvantages wives may contrive to conceal from their

husbands the fact that they have a little property in the hands of some

member of the wife's family. The writer is acquainted with a Chinese

almost sixty years of age, who has a flock of grandchildren, but who will

have nothing to do with his wife nor she with him. During all their

married life, between thirty and forty years, he has cherished the

suspicion that she has somewhere at interest a considerable sum of money

which she will not share with him. It is certainly not true that all

Chinese deceive one another, but it is surely true that there is always

danger of it, which everywhere begets unrest and suspicion. It is also an

allied phenomenon that the principals in a matter may be totally unable to

ascertain the real facts with which every one else is perfectly

acquainted, but which no one will tell.

Mencius remarked that the feeling of pity is common to all men, and what

was true in his day is no less so now. At the same time there are wide

differences in its exhibition. Every Chinese is a seasoned soldier in the

warfare of life and is accustomed to every form and grade of misery. His

first thought at such a spectacle is not, Cannot something be done about

it? but if he has a thought at all it is far more likely to be, Why should

I do anything about it? Ages of hereditary experience have taught him not

too rashly to indulge in sentimental benevolence which may have

disagreeable sequelA|. A Chinese remarked in the writer's hearing while

glancing at the corpse of a man who had died far from home under painful

circumstances: "This plaything will be hard to transport." Of what we call

sympathy he had not the smallest conception. A few years later this same

individual was seized by the District Magistrate of the county in which he

lived, thrust into the standing-cage (a punishment far more horrible than

the slicing process, since the victim is conscious but is in a position of

acute agony without food or water until he miserably perishes) with no

definite charge of any kind against him, and with no trial whatever. The

only comment of many of these who had once known him well, was either that

it was just what might have been expected, or that it was probably just

what he deserved.

The typical Chinese is a good-natured, even-tempered, peaceable

individual, ready to do his part in life without shirking, and asking only

for fair treatment. But as the placid surface of many lakes is often

lashed into fury by sudden and violent winds pouring down through mountain

gorges, so the equilibrium of the Chinese is liable to be destroyed by

gusts of terrible passion, instantly transforming him from a quiet member

of a well ordered society, into an impressive object-lesson on the reality

of demon possession. Whether life is worth living has been thought "to

depend upon the liver." In China one might rather affirm that it hinges

upon the spleen. Some of our readers may not be unfamiliar with a legend

of a distinguished American who was provided by his kind father with a

little hatchet which he tried upon a favourite cherry tree with marked

success. When the father discovers this, he asks who did the deed, upon

which the child handsomely confesses, and is clasped to his father's arms

with the remark that he would rather lose many cherry trees than to have

his son tell a lie. The whole occurrence probably did not consume more

than ten minutes. To illustrate some of the traits of disunity already

mentioned, let us translate this incident into Chinese.

Mr. Hua Hsing-tun was a well-to-do farmer, who had in his courtyard a

handsome pomegranate tree of which he was very proud. His youngest son one

day got hold of a sickle, which had been sharpened ready to cut wheat the

next morning. With this implement he chopped at everything he saw, and

among the rest, at the pomegranate tree which fell at the third blow.

Seeing what mischief he had done, he ran to the other end of the village

where he played with some boys whom he told that a cousin (the third son

of his fourth uncle) had done the deed. This was overheard by a neighbour

who passed on to the other end of the village just in time to hear Mr. Hua

angrily roaring out the inquiry who had spoiled his pet tree. During a

lull in the storm the neighbour, who had stepped into the courtyard to see

what was the matter, confided to another neighbour that it was the nephew

who had done the mischief. The neighbours soon depart. As no one in the

yard knows anything about the tree, Mr. Hua, white with rage, continues

his bawling upon the village street, denouncing the individual who had

killed his tree. An older son who has just come up, having heard the story

of the two neighbours, repeats it to his father, who gaining at last a

clue, rushes to his fourth brother's yard, only to find no one at home but

his sister-in-law, whom he begins to revile in the most outrageous manner.

For an instant only she is surprised, then takes in the situation and

screams at her brother-in-law, returning his revilings with compound

interest added. He retreats into the alley and thence to the street,

whither she follows him, shrieking at the top of her voice.

At this juncture the unfortunate nephew alleged to be the author of the

mischief attracted by the clamour comes home, when the infuriated uncle

administers a great deal of abusive language relative to his illegitimate

descent from a base ancestry, as well as a stunning blow with a stick.

This drives the mother of the child to frenzy, and she attacks her

brother-in-law by seizing his queue, being immediately pulled off by the

second brother, and some neighbours, there being now fifty or more

spectators. The fourth sister-in-law is forcibly dragged back to her own

yard by several other women, screaming defiance as she goes, and ends by

scratching her own face in long furrows with her sharp nails, being

presently covered with blood. Her husband has now come in furious at the

insult to his family, reviles the elder brother (and his ancestry)

declaring that he will immediately go to the yamAȘn and lodge a complaint.

He takes a string of cash and departs on this errand, but is subsequently

followed several miles by six men, who spend two hours in trying to get

him to return, with the promise that they will "talk peace." About

midnight they all reach home. Most of the next five days is spent in

interviews between third parties, who in turn have other conferences with

the principals. At the expiration of this period all is settled. Mr. Hua

the elder is to make a feast at an expense of not less than ten strings of

cash, at which he shall admit that he was in error in reviling this

sister-in-law at that time; the younger brother is to accept the apology

in the presence of fourteen other men who have become involved in the

matter at some of its stages. When the feast has been eaten, "harmony" is

restored. But what about the author of all this mischief? Oh, "he is only

a child." With which observation the whole affair is dismissed, and

forgotten.

Chinese quarrels are objectionable by reason of their suddenness, their

violence, and their publicity. The last named feature is the one most

repugnant to Western civilization which has not yet learned how to avoid

domestic disputes itself. As every occurrence immediately becomes public

property, the element of "face" at once enters in, demanding an

adjustment which shall put the injured party right in the presence of the

rest of creation always conceived as looking critically on.

One of the most melancholy phenomena of Chinese life is the suddenness,

the spontaneity, the inexorableness with which natural affection and all

kindly relations under certain conditions seem absolutely to wither up. If

a member of a clan comes into collision with the prejudices of the

generation above his own, or even with that to which he himself belongs,

his grandfather, father, great uncles, uncles, cousins, and brothers often

promise to break his legs, rub out his eyes with quick-lime, and the like,

and not infrequently carry these threats into execution. It is constantly

mentioned as a mitigation of an attack with violence, that there was no

intention to _kill_ the individual, only to maul him till he had so many

broken bones that he could not stir!

If the matter comes to a lawsuit, it is a common cry that no compromise

shall ever be made, until the opponent has parted with his last piece of

land. The suspense of mind under which many Chinese habitually live,

uncertain whether these menaces will be carried into execution, would

drive an Occidental to insanity or to suicide, or both. A frequent ending

to a stormy conference is the dark hint: "We shall see about this later."

The Chinese are firm believers in the doctrine of rewards and punishments.

A man who has been conspicuous for his evil deeds will meet no shadow of

sympathy when trouble of any sort overtakes him. He is a tiger in a pit.

Such an one who was attacked with worm-breeding corrosive ulcers, dragged

himself to the terrace of one of the temples of his native village, where

he lay sometimes in a coma, and at others screaming with pain. His

neighbours would revile him as they passed with the comment: "It is

heaven's vengeance!"

The Chinese character often abounds in amiable alleviations of conditions

which would seem at first sight to make existence intolerable. In the

breasts of the Chinese, as in ours, Hope springs eternal. His

generalizations from the experience of others as well as his own, render

him measurably certain that in the long-run almost nothing will go right.

He expects to meet insincerity, suspicion, and neglect, and he is rarely

disappointed. He will often be dependent upon those who would be glad to

get rid of him, and who keep him constantly aware of this fact. He knows

as certainly before as after the event that the loans which he is obliged

to make will not be repaid at the proper time, nor in full; that the

promised assistance if given at all will be rendered grudgingly, and

perhaps turned into open hostility. It is proverbial that he has in his

mind "two hundred next years" but he is not infrequently perfectly aware

that no number of "next years" will ever suffice to get him straight with

the world. Yet amid all this he generally maintains a serene cheerfulness

which to us would be as impossible as comfortable respiration in the foul

atmosphere of a Chinese sleeping-room. He is used to it--we are not. A man

of this type weighted with a termagant wife, who had become exasperated by

the unexpected remarriage of a brother of her husband for twenty years a

widower, and who filled the house with a tempest in consequence, said to

the writer that for the past three months he had not drawn "one peaceful

breath!" This was not mentioned by way of complaint, but as one might

refer in reply to an inquiry about a troublesome corn on the toe. Under

stress of this sort many Chinese exhibit a degree of forbearance to which

it is to be feared we have no counterpart in the West, where individual

rights have not for ages been merged in those of the family. Such persons

are said to "eat a dumb man's injury," and the number of them is

proverbially unlimited, for the class is immortal.

No one who is intimately acquainted with their real life is likely to

exaggerate the evils from which the Chinese suffer, since the strongest

representation often seems to come short of the truth. But every one finds

himself asking by what means it would be possible to forefend some of

these evils. Since many of them appear to be inseparably associated with

that poverty which is apparently the keynote of Chinese discords, one is

tempted to imagine that if poverty were abolished, family disunity also

would largely disappear. Something may be said in favour of this theory,

but it fails in presence of the undoubted fact that the evils to be

remedied are perhaps quite as prevalent among those Chinese who are fairly

well off, as among the poor, besides being much more conspicuous and

irrepressible.

Moral discord can be cured only by radical and not by superficial

remedies. Yet there is one prescription of an economic as distinguished

from a moral type which were it tried on a large scale for a generation or

two might work such a revolution that China would hardly know itself. If

marriages could be invariably postponed until the partners had arrived at

mature age, and if on occasion of the marriage of each son the family

property were divided so that a conflict of interests were no longer

unavoidable, a whole continent of evils would be nipped in the bud.

At the inquiry held in marine courts as to the reasons for the wreck of

great steamers with all their passengers and cargo, in the Formosan

Channel, it is often shown that the vessel was acted upon by a powerful

but hidden current which made ruin inevitable. The hereditary habits of

the Chinese in the agglomeration of large numbers of individuals under one

head constitute a drift toward disunity and disintegration. We firmly

believe that the strain upon the temper and the disposition incident to

the mechanical collocation of so many human beings in one compound-family

on the Chinese plan is one which no society in the world could endure,

because it is more than human nature can bear. It is certain that the

resultant evils are inevitable, insufferable, and by any means at the

command of the Chinese incurable.