of Queen Elizabeth to be held in a proper degree of consideration. As
women, they were admired and courted, but they scarcely could be said to
participate in the society of men. In fact, the manners of our
forefathers, before that reign, were too rough for them. In Wales, wives
were sold to their husbands. In Scotland, women could not appear as
evidences in a court of justice. In the time of Henry the Eighth, an act
was passed prohibiting women and apprentices from reading the New
Testament in the English language. Among the polished Greeks, they were
held in little estimation. Homer degrades all his females: he makes the
Grecian princesses weave the web, spin, and do all the drudgery of a
modern washerwoman; and rarely allows them any share of social
intercourse with the other sex. Yet the very foundations on which he has
constructed his two matchless poems are women. It appears also from all
the dramatic writers of ancient Greece, whose aim was "to hold as
'twere the mirror up to nature, to shew the very age and body of the
time its form and pressure," that notwithstanding their extreme delicacy
of taste, and rapid progress in the fine arts, their manners were low
and coarse, and that they were entire strangers to any other
gratification arising from the society of women, than the indulgence of
the sensual appetite. Even the grave Herodotus mentions, in the highest
terms of approbation, the custom of Babylon of selling by auction, on a
certain fixed day, all the young women who had any pretensions to
beauty, in order to raise a sum of money for portioning off the rest of
the females, to whom nature had been less liberal in bestowing her
gifts, and who were knocked down to those who were satisfied to take
them with the least money. This degradation of women would seem to be as
impolitic as it is extraordinary since, under their guidance, the
earliest, and sometimes the most indelible (I believe I may safely add,
the best and most amiable) impressions are stamped on the youthful mind.
In infancy their protection is indispensably necessary, and in sickness,
or in old age, they unquestionably afford the best and kindest relief:
or, as a French author has neatly observed, "_Sans les femmes, les deux
extrémités de la vie seraient sans secours, et le milieu sans
plaisirs._" "Without woman the two extremities of life would be
helpless, and the middle of it joyless."
The Chinese, if possible, have imposed on their women a greater degree
of humility and restraint than the Greeks of old, or the Europeans in
the dark ages. Not satisfied with the physical deprivation of the use of
their limbs, they have contrived, in order to keep them the more
confined, to make it a moral crime for a woman to be seen abroad. If
they should have occasion to visit a friend or relation, they must be
carried in a close sedan chair: to walk would be the height of
vulgarity. Even the country ladies, who may not possess the luxury of a
chair, rather than walk, suffer themselves to be sometimes rolled about
in a sort of covered wheelbarrow. The wives and daughters, however, of
the lower class are neither confined to the house, nor exempt from hard
and slavish labour, many being obliged to work with an infant upon the
back, while the husband, in all probability, is gaming, or otherwise
idling away his time. I have frequently seen women assisting to drag a
sort of light plough, and the harrow. Nieuwhoff, in one of his prints,
taken from drawings supposed to be made in China, yokes, if I mistake
not, a woman to the same plough with an ass. Should this be the fact,
the Chinese are not singular, if we may credit the Natural Historian of
Antiquity[6], who observes that, to open the fertile fields of
_Byzacium_ in Africa, it was necessary to wait until the rains had
soaked into the ground; "after which a little weakly ass, and an old
woman, attached to the same yoke, were sufficient to drag the plough
through the soil," _post imbres vili asello, et a parte altera jugi anu
vomerem trahente vidimus scindi_.
[6] Plin. lib. xvii. cap. 3.
In the province of _Kiang-see_ nothing is more common than to see a
woman drawing a kind of light plough, with a single handle, through
ground that has previously been prepared. The easier task of directing
the machine is left to the husband, who, holding the plough with one
hand, at the same time with the other casts the seed into the drills.
The advantages which those women possess in a higher sphere of life, if
any, are not much to be envied. Even at home, in her own family, a woman
must neither eat at the same table, nor sit in the same room with her
husband. And the male children, at the age of nine or ten, are entirely
separated from their sisters. Thus the feelings of affection, not the
instinctive products of nature, but the offspring of frequent
intercourse and of a mutual communication of their little wants and
pleasures, are nipped in the very bud of dawning sentiment. A cold and
ceremonious conduct must be observed on all occasions between the
members of the same family. There is no common focus to attract and
concentrate the love and respect of children for their parents. Each
lives retired and apart from the other. The little incidents and
adventures of the day, which furnish the conversation among children of
many a long winter's evening, by a comfortable fire-side, in our own
country, are in China buried in silence. Boys, it is true, sometimes mix
together in schools, but the stiff and ceremonious behaviour, which
constitutes no inconsiderable part of their education, throws a
restraint on all the little playful actions incident to their time of
life and completely subdues all spirit of activity and enterprize. A
Chinese youth of the higher class is inanimate, formal, and inactive,
constantly endeavouring to assume the gravity of years.
To beguile the many tedious and heavy hours, that must unavoidably occur
to the secluded females totally unqualified for mental pursuits, the
tobacco-pipe is the usual expedient. Every female from the age of eight
or nine years wears, as an appendage to her dress, a small silken purse
or pocket to hold tobacco and a pipe, with the use of which many of them
are not unacquainted at this tender age. Some indeed are constantly
employed in working embroidery on silks, or in painting birds, insects,
and flowers on thin gauze. In the ladies' apartments of the great house
in which we lived at Pekin, we observed some very beautiful specimens of
both kinds in the pannels of the partitions, and I brought home a few
articles which I understand have been much admired; but the women who
employ their time in this manner are generally the wives and daughters
of tradesmen and artificers, who are usually the weavers both of cottons
and silks. I remember asking one of the great officers of the court, who
wore a silken vest beautifully embroidered, if it was the work of his
lady, but the supposition that his wife should condescend to use her
needle seemed to give him offence.
Their manners in domestic life are little calculated to produce that
extraordinary degree of filial piety, or affection and reverence towards
parents, for which they have been eminently celebrated, and to the
salutary effects of which the Jesuits have attributed the stability of
the government. Filial duty is, in fact, in China, less a moral
sentiment, than a precept which by length of time has acquired the
efficacy of a positive law; and it may truly be said to exist more in
the maxims of the government, than in the minds of the people. Had
they, indeed, considered filial piety to be sufficiently strong when
left to its own natural influence, a precept or law to enforce it would
have been superfluous. The first maxim inculcated in early life is the
entire submission of children to the will of their parents. The tenor of
this precept is not only "to honour thy father and thy mother, that thy
days may be long in the land;" but to labour for thy father and thy
mother as long as they both shall live, to sell thyself into perpetual
servitude for their support, if necessary, and to consider thy life at
their disposal. So much has this sentiment of parental authority gained
ground by precept and habit, that to all intents and purposes it is as
binding as the strongest law. It gives to the parent the exercise of the
same unlimited and arbitrary power over his children, that the Emperor,
the common father, possesses by law over his people. Hence, as among the
Romans, the father has the power to sell his son for a slave; and this
power, either from caprice, or from poverty, or other causes, is not
unfrequently put in force.
A law that is founded in reason or equity seldom requires to be
explained or justified. The government of China, in sanctioning an act
of parental authority that militates so strongly against every principle
of nature, of moral right and wrong, seems to have felt the force of
this remark. Their learned men have been employed in writing volumes on
the subject, the principal aim of which appears to be that of impressing
on the minds of the people the comparative authority of the Emperor over
his subjects and of a parent over his children. The reasonableness and
justice of the latter being once established, that of the former, in a
patriarchal government, followed of course; and the extent of the power
delegated to the one could not in justice be withheld from the other.
And for the better allaying of any scruples that might be supposed to
arise in men's consciences, it was easy to invent any piece of sophistry
to serve by way of justification for those unnatural parents who might
feel themselves disposed, or who from want might be induced, to part
with their children into perpetual slavery. A son, says one of their
most celebrated lawgivers, after the death of his father, has the power
of selling his services for a day, or a year, or for life; but a father,
while living, has unlimited authority over his son; a father has,
therefore, the same right of selling the services of his son to another
for any length of time, or even for life.
Daughters may be said to be invariably sold. The bridegroom must always
make his bargain with the parents of his intended bride. The latter has
no choice. She is a lot in the market to be disposed of to the highest
bidder. The man, indeed, in this respect, has no great advantage on his
side, as he is not allowed to see his intended wife until he arrives in
formal procession at his gate. If, however, on opening the door of the
chair, in which the lady is shut up, and of which the key has been sent
before, he should dislike his bargain, he can return her to her parents;
in which case the articles are forfeited that constituted her price; and
a sum of money, in addition to them, may be demanded, not exceeding,
however, the value of these articles. These matrimonial processions,
attended with pomp and music, are not unlike those used by the Greeks
when the bride was conducted to her husband's house in a splendid car;
only, in the former instance, the lady is completely invisible to every
one.
To what a degraded condition is a female reduced by this absurd custom!
How little inducement, it would be supposed, she could have to appear
amiable or elegant, or to study her dress, or cramp her feet, or paint
her face, knowing she will be consigned into the hands of the first man
who will give the price that her parents have fixed upon her charms. No
previous conversation is allowed to take place, no exchange of opinions
or comparison of sentiments with regard to inclinations or dislikes; all
the little silent acts of attention and kindness, which so eloquently
speak to the heart, and demonstrate the sincerity of the attachment, are
utterly unfelt. In a word, that state of the human heart, occasioned by
the mutual affection between the sexes, and from whence proceed the
happiest, the most interesting, and sometimes also, the most distressing
moments of life, has no existence in China. The man takes a wife because
the laws of the country direct him to do so, and custom has made it
indispensable; and the woman, after marriage, continues to be the same
piece of inanimate furniture she always was in her father's house. She
suffers no indignity, nor does she feel any jealousy or disturbance (at
least it is prudent not to shew it) when her husband brings into the
same house a second, or a third woman. The first is contented with the
honour of presiding over, and directing the concerns of, the family
within doors, and in hearing the children of the others calling her
mother.
It might be urged, perhaps, on the part of the husband, that it would be
highly unreasonable for the woman to complain. The man who purchased her
ought to have an equal right in the same manner to purchase others. The
case is materially different where parties are united by sentiments of
love and esteem, or bound by promises or engagements; under such
circumstances the introduction of a second wife, under the same roof,
could not fail to disturb the harmony of the family, and occasion the
most poignant feelings of distress to the first. But a Chinese wife has
no such feelings, nor does the husband make any such engagements.
Although polygamy be allowed by the government, as indeed it could not
well happen otherwise where women are articles of purchase, yet it is an
evil that, in a great degree, corrects itself. Nine-tenths of the
community find it difficult to rear the offspring of one woman by the
labour of their hands; such, therefore, are neither in circumstances,
nor probably feel much inclination, to purchase a second. The general
practice would, besides, be morally impossible. In a country where so
many female infants are exposed, and where the laws or custom oblige
every man to marry, any person taking to himself two wives must leave
some other without one, unless indeed it be supposed with the author of
_L'Esprit des Loix_, what there seems to be no grounds for supposing,
that a much greater number of females are born than of males. But all
the observations of this lively and ingenious author with regard to
China, and particularly the inferences he draws with respect to climate,
fall to the ground. It is not the vigour of natural propensities, as he
has supposed, that destroys the moral ones; it is not the effect of
climate that makes it to be considered among these people "as a prodigy
of virtue for a man to meet a fine woman in a retired chamber without
offering violence to her,"--it is the effect of studiously pampering the
appetite, nurturing vicious notions, considering women as entirely
subservient to the pleasures of man; and, in short, by fancying those
pleasures in the head, rather than feeling them in the heart, that have
led them to adopt a sentiment which does the nation so little credit.
The climate being every where temperate, and the diet of the majority of
the people moderate, I might say scanty, these have little influence in
promoting a vehement desire for sexual intercourse. It is indeed among
the upper ranks only and a few wealthy merchants (whom the sumptuary
laws, prohibiting fine houses, gardens, carriages, and every kind of
external shew and grandeur, have encouraged secretly to indulge and
pamper their appetite in every species of luxury and voluptuousness)
where a plurality of wives are to be found. Every great officer of state
has his haram consisting of six, eight, or ten women, according to his
circumstances and his inclination for the sex. Every merchant also of
Canton has his seraglio; but a poor man finds one wife quite sufficient
for all his wants, and the children of one woman as many, and sometimes
more, than he is able to support.
The unsociable distance which the law (or custom, stronger than law)
prescribes to be observed between the sexes, and the cool and
indifferent manner of bargaining for a wife, are not calculated to
produce numerous instances of criminal intercourse. These, however,
sometimes happen, and the weight of punishment always fall heaviest on
the woman. The husband finds no difficulty in obtaining a sentence of
divorce, after which he may sell her for a slave and thus redeem a part
at least of his purchase-money. The same thing happens in case a wife
should elope, instances of which I fancy are still more rare; as if she
be of any fashion, her feet are ill calculated to carry her off with
speed; and if a young girl should chance to lose what is usually held to
be the most valuable part of female reputation, she is sent to market by
her parents and publicly sold for a slave. In cases of mutual dislike,
or incompatibility of temper, the woman is generally sent back to her
parents. A woman can inherit no property, but it may be left to her by
will. If a widow has no children, or females only, the property descends
to the nearest male relation on the deceased husband's side, but he must
maintain the daughters until he can provide them with husbands.
The prohibition against the frequent intercourse with modest females,
for there are public women in every great city, is not attended here
with the effect of rendering the pursuit more eager; nor does it
increase the ardour, as among the ancient Spartans who were obliged to
steal, as it were, the embraces of their lawful wives. In China it seems
to have the contrary effect of promoting that sort of connexion which,
being one of the greatest violations of the laws of nature, ought to be
considered among the first of moral crimes--a connexion that sinks the
man many degrees below the brute. The commission of this detestable and
unnatural act is attended with so little sense of shame, or feelings of
delicacy, that many of the first officers of state seemed to make no
hesitation in publicly avowing it. Each of these officers is constantly
attended by his pipe-bearer, who is generally a handsome boy from
fourteen to eighteen years of age, and is always well dressed. In
pointing out to our notice the boys of each other, they made use of
signs and motions, the meaning of which was too obvious to be
misinterpreted. The two Mahomedans, I observe, who were in China in the
ninth century, have also taken notice of this circumstance: and I find
in the journal of Mr. Hittner, a gentleman who was in that part of the
suite who accompanied the British Embassador into Tartary, in speaking
of the palaces of Gehol, the following remark: "Dans l'un de ces palais,
parmi d'autres chefs-d'oeuvres de l'art, on voyait deux statues de
garçons, en marbre, d'un excellent travail; ils avaient les pieds et les
mains liés, et leur position ne laissait point de doute que le vice des
Grecs n'eût perdu son horreur pour les Chinois. Un vieil eunuque nous
les fit remarquer avec un sourire impudent."
It has been remarked that this unnatural crime prevails most in those
countries where polygamy is allowed, that is to say, in those countries
where the affections of women are not consulted, but their persons
purchased for gold--a remark which may lead to this conclusion, that it
is rather a moral turpitude than a propensity arising from physical or
local causes. The appetite for female intercourse soon becomes glutted
by the facility of enjoyment; and where women, so circumstanced, can
only receive the embraces of their proprietors from a sense of duty,
their coldness and indifference, the necessary consequence of such
connections, must also increase in the men the tendency to produce
satiety. I think it has been observed that, even in Europe, where
females in general have the superior advantage of fixing their own value
upon themselves, it is the greatest rakes and debauchees, who,
"----bred at home in idleness and riot,
Ransack for mistresses th' unwholesome stews,
And never know the worth of virtuous love."
fly sometimes in search of fresh enjoyment in the detestable way here
alluded to[7].
[7] I should not have taken notice of this odious vice, had not the
truth of its existence in China been doubted by some, and attributed by
others to a wrong cause. Professing to describe the people as I found
them, I must endeavour to draw a faithful picture, neither attempting to
palliate their vices, nor to exaggerate their virtues.
I have already observed that the state of domestic society in China was
ill calculated to promote the affection and kindness which children not
only owe to, but really feel for, their parents in many countries of
Europe. A tyrant, in fact, to command, and a slave to obey, are found in
every family; for, where the father is a despot, the son will naturally
be a slave; and if all the little acts of kindness and silent
attentions, that create mutual endearments, be wanting among the
members of the same family, living under the same roof, it will be in
vain to expect to find them in the enlarged sphere of public life. In
fact, they have no kind of friendly societies nor meetings to talk over
the transactions and the news of the day. These can only take place in a
free government. A Chinese having finished his daily employment retires
to his solitary apartment. There are, it is true, a sort of public
houses where the lower orders of people sometimes resort for their cup
of tea or of _seau-tchoo_ (a kind of ardent spirit distilled from a
mixture of rice and other grain) but such houses are seldom, if at all,
frequented for the sake of company. They are no incitement, as those are
of a similar kind in Europe, to jovial pleasures or to vulgar ebriety.
From this odious vice the bulk of the people are entirely free. Among
the multitudes which we daily saw, in passing from one extremity of the
country to the other, I do not recollect having ever met with a single
instance of a man being disguised in liquor. In Canton, where the lower
orders of people are employed by Europeans and necessarily mix with
European seamen, intoxication is not unfrequent among the natives, but
this vice forms no part of the general character of the people. Whenever
a few Chinese happen to meet together, it is generally for the purpose
of gaming, or to eat a kettle of boiled rice, or drink a pot of tea, or
smoke a pipe of tobacco.
The upper ranks indulge at home in the use of opium. Great quantities of
this intoxicating drug are smuggled into the country, notwithstanding
all the precautions taken by the government to prohibit the importation
of it; but it is too expensive to be used by the common people. The
officers of the customs are not beyond a bribe. After receiving the sum
agreed upon between the importer and themselves they frequently become
the purchasers of the prohibited article. Most of the country ships from
Bengal carry opium to China; but that of Turkey sent from London in the
China ships is preferred, and sells at near double the price of the
other. The governor of Canton, after describing in one of his late
proclamations on the subject the pernicious and fatal effects arising
from the use of opium, observes, "Thus it is that foreigners by the
means of a vile excrementitious substance derive from this empire the
most solid profits and advantages; but that our countrymen should
blindly pursue this destructive and ensnaring vice, even till death is
the consequence, without being undeceived, is indeed a fact odious and
deplorable in the highest degree." Yet the governor of Canton very
composedly takes his daily dose of opium.