paramour, provided he does it immediately, but only on that condition.
If the guilty wife adds to her crime by intriguing against her
husband’s life, she dies by a slow and painful execution. If even the
adulterer slay her husband without her knowledge, she is strangled. The
privilege of putting a wife to death is not allowed for any inferior
offence. To strike a husband, is punishable by a hundred blows and
divorce; to disable him, with strangulation. In all these circumstances
the inferior wife is punished one degree more severely. Thus offences
against them are less harshly, and offences by them more rigidly,
chastised. In addition to these legal visitations the bamboo is at hand
to preserve discipline among the women.
One of the laws of China exhibits a peculiar feature of depravity in
the people. It is enacted, that whoever lends his wife or daughter
upon hire is to be severely punished, and any one falsely bargaining
away his wife or his sister is to be similarly dealt with. All
persons consenting to the transaction share the penalty. Nor is this
an obsolete enactment against an unknown crime. Instances do not
unfrequently occur of poor men selling their wives as concubines to
their wealthier neighbours. Others prostitute them for gain; but these
instances of profligacy usually occur in the large and crowded cities.
Sometimes the woman consents, but sometimes also opposes the infamous
design.
In 1832 a woman was condemned to strangulation for killing her husband
by accident, while resisting an adulterer whom he had introduced for
her to prostitute herself to him. These incidents occur only in the
lowest class. Some men are as jealous as Turks, and maintain eunuchs to
guard their wives.
Under this system many restrictions are imposed on the women of
China. They form no part of what is called society, enjoying little
companionship, even with persons of their own sex. Those of the better
class are instructed in embroidering and other graceful but useless
accomplishments. They are seldom educated to any extent, though some
instances have occurred of learned women and elegant poetesses, who
have been praised and admired throughout the country. Fond of gay
clothes, of gaudy furniture, and brilliant decoration, they love
nothing so much as display; and though assuming a demure and timid air,
cannot be highly praised on this account, for their bashfulness is, in
such cases, more apparent than real. Still they are generally described
as faithful partners. Religious services are performed for them in
the temple, to which women are admitted. The wives of the poorer sort
labour in the fields, and perform all the drudgery of the house, an
occupation which is held as suited to their nature. “Let my daughter
sweep your house” is the expression made use of in offering a wife. It
should be mentioned, however, to relieve the darkness of this picture,
that husbands often present offerings at the temples, with prayers to
the gods for the recovery of their sick wives. The idea may indeed
suggest itself, that this is with a view to economy, as girls are
costly purchases; but no man is the greater philosopher for asserting
that a whole nation exists without the commonest sentiments of human
nature. Indeed, many instances occur even in China of husbands and
wives living as dear friends together, especially when polygamy has not
been adopted in the dwelling. The obedience to old habits is not to be
confounded with characteristic harshness in the individual; nor does it
seem impossible, when we examine the variety of manners in the world,
to believe in a strong and tender attachment between a man and the
woman whom, in adherence to ancient usage, he would not allow to eat
at the same table with himself. A privilege belongs to the female sex
here which it enjoys in no other barbarian country. A strong authority
is recognised in the widow over her son. She is acknowledged to have
the right to be supported by him, and it is a proverbial saying, that
“a woman is thrice dependent--before marriage on her father, after
marriage on her husband, when a widow on her son.”
From this view of the condition of women, and the regulations of
marriage, we proceed to an important part of the subject--the
infanticide for which China has been so infamously celebrated. It is
impossible to conceive a more contradictory confusion of statements,
than we have seen put forward with reference to this question. Weighing
the various authorities, however, we are inclined to adopt a moderate
view, rejecting the extravagant pictures of one, and the broad denials
of the other set of writers. Infanticide, it cannot be disputed, is
practised in the country, and to a considerable extent; but it is, and
always will be impossible, to acquire the exact statistics, or even an
approximation to the precise truth.
Two causes appear to have operated in encouraging this practice--the
poverty of the lower classes, and the severity of the law with respect
to the illicit intercourse of the sexes. The former is the principal
cause. There is a strong maternal feeling in the woman’s breast, and
children are only destroyed when the indigence of the parents allows
no hope of rearing them well. It is invariably the female child which
is, under these circumstances, slain; for the son can always, after
a few years, earn his livelihood, and be an assistance, instead of
a burden, to the family. The birth of a female child is regarded as
a calamity, and brings mourning into the house. One of the national
proverbs expresses this fact in a striking manner, exhibiting also the
inferior estimation in which that sex is viewed. It says, that to a
female infant a common tile may be given as a toy, while to a male a
gem should be presented.
When it is determined to destroy the offspring thus born under the
roof of poverty, a choice of method is open. It may be drowned in warm
water; its throat may be pinched; it may be stifled by a wet cloth
tied over its mouth; it may be choked by grains of rice. Another plan
is to carry the child, immediately after its birth, and bury it alive.
Captain Collins, of the _Plover_ sloop-of-war, relates that some of
his company, while visiting the coast of China, saw a boat full of
men and women, with four infants. They landed and dug two pits, in
which they were about to inter their living but feeble victims, when
they were disturbed. They then made off rapidly, and passed round a
headland, beyond which they, no doubt, accomplished their purpose
without interruption. When the missionary Smith was in the suburbs of
Canton, in 1844, he was presented by a native with a work written by
a mandarin, and published gratuitously at the expense of government,
to discourage the practice of infanticide. When questioned upon the
actual prevalence of the custom, the native said that, taking a circle
with a radius of ten miles from the spot they then occupied, the number
of infanticides within the space thus included would not exceed five
hundred in a year. It was confined to the very poor, and originated in
the difficulty of rearing and providing for their female offspring.
The rich never encouraged, and the poor were ashamed, of the practice.
He knew men who had drowned their daughters, but would not confess the
act, speaking of their children as though they had died of disease.
In Fokien province, on the contrary, infanticides were numerous. At
a place called Kea-King-Chow, about five days’ journey from Canton,
there were computed to be 500 or 600 cases in a month. The comparative
immunity of Canton from the contagion of this crime was the government
foundling-hospital established there. About 500 female children,
born of parents in poverty and want, were annually received, to have
temporary provision and sustenance. From time to time, the more wealthy
merchants and gentry visit the institution to select some of the
children, whom they take home to educate as concubines or servants. The
hospital has accommodation for at least 1000 infants, each of which
is usually removed after three months, either to the house of some
voluntary guardian, or to wet nurses in other districts. This is the
only important institution of the kind in the province. Infanticide
is still, even by the most favourable accounts, lamentably prevalent.
The foundling-hospitals, of which there is one in every great town, do
certainly oppose a check to the practice. That at Shanghae receives
annually about 200 infants.
The villagers in the neighbourhood of Amoy confessed that female
infanticide was generally practised among them, and their statements
were expressed in a manner which left no doubt that they considered it
an innocent and proper expedient for lightening the evils of poverty.
Two out of every four, they said, were destroyed; but rich people,
who could afford to bring them up never resorted to, because they
never needed, such a means of relief. Some killed three, four, or even
five out of six; it depended entirely on the circumstances of the
individual. The object was effected immediately after the infant’s
birth. If sons, however, were born in alternate succession, it was
regarded as an omen of happy fortune for the parents, and the daughters
were spared. None of the villagers denied to any of their questioners
the generality of the custom, but few would confess personally to the
actual fact. In some districts one-half was reported as the average
destruction of the female population, and in the cities some declared
the crime was equally prevalent, though we may take this as the
exaggeration which always attends the loose statements of ignorant men,
who, having little idea of figures, are required to furnish a number,
and speak at random.
Infanticide, however, is not wholly confined to the poor. It is
occasionally resorted to by the rich to conceal their illicit amours.
In 1838 a proclamation against it was published, but the general
perpetration of the crime rendered its repression impossible, with such
machinery as the Emperor has at his command. Abeel calculated that
throughout a large district, the average was 39 per cent. of the female
children. It is evident, however, from all these facts, that under an
improved government, the crime might be altogether extinguished, not
by severe enactments or vigilant police, but by rendering infanticide
unnecessary in the eyes of the people.
The second cause which induces parents to destroy their children is
the stringency of the law against the illicit intercourse of unmarried
people; its provisions are equally characteristic and severe. To render
its enforcement easier, the separation of the sexes is rigidly insisted
upon. Not only are servants, but even brothers and sisters, prohibited
from mixing except under regulation. Intercourse by mutual consent is
punished with 70 blows, while with married people the penalty varies
from 80 to 100. Violation of a female, wedded or single, is punished
by strangulation. An assault, with intent to ravish, by 100 strokes of
the bamboo and perpetual banishment to a remote spot. Intercourse with
children under twelve years of age is treated as rape. Should a child
be born from one of these unlawful intrigues, its support devolves on
the father; but if the transaction be thus far concealed, this evidence
of it is usually sunk in the river, or flung out by the way-side.
An unmarried woman found pregnant is severely punished, whether her
accomplice can be discovered or not. The illicit intercourse of slaves
with their masters’ wives or daughters is punished with death; while
officers of government, civil and military, and the sons of those
who hold hereditary rank, if found indulging in criminal intrigues
with females under their jurisdiction, are subjected to unmerciful
castigation with the stick.
One grace is accorded to the weaker sex in China. No woman is committed
to prison, except in capital cases, or cases of adultery. In all others
they remain, if married, in the custody of their husbands; if single,
in that of their friends. No woman quick with child can be flogged,
tortured, or executed, until a hundred days after her delivery.
Women, however, of the poorer orders, whose friends do not care, or
are unable, to be responsible for them, are lodged under the care of
female wardens, and in reference to this we may instance a curious fact
illustrative of prison discipline in China. In 1805 one of the great
officers of government made a report to the Emperor, that three female
warders of the prison were in the habit of engaging with traders in an
illicit and disgraceful intercourse with female servants, and hiring
out the female prisoners, not yet sentenced or waiting for discharge,
to gain money for them by prostitution.
Sensual as the Chinese are, the punishable breach of the moral law--the
intercourse of unmarried persons--is checked by the system of early
marriages. Children are often betrothed in the cradle. Men seldom pass
the age of twenty, or girls that of fifteen, in celibacy. The Parsees,
however, of all ages, are notorious for their abandoned mode of life.
Prostitution, however, prevails to a prodigious extent. There is
throughout the country a regular traffic in females. “Seduction and
adultery,” says Williams, “are comparatively unfrequent; but brothels
and their inmates occur everywhere on land and water. One danger
attending young girls going alone is, that they will be stolen for
incarceration in these gates of hell.”
This is in allusion to a very extraordinary system prevalent in the
great cities of China. In 1832 it was calculated there were between
8000 and 10,000 prostitutes having abodes in and about Canton. Of these
the greater portion had been stolen while children, and compelled to
adopt that course of life. Dressed gaily, taught to affect happiness,
and trained in seductive manners, they were examples of their class in
Europe. Many young girls were carried away, forcibly violated, and then
consigned to a brothel.
Hundreds of kidnappers, chiefly women, swarmed in the city, gaining a
livelihood by the traffic in young girls and children. Nor was this
the only way in which such places were supplied. In times of general
scarcity or individual want, parents have been seen leading their own
daughters through the streets and offering them for sale. The selling
of children, says Cunynghame, one of the most recent visitors to
Canton, is an every-day occurrence, and is on the whole a check upon
infanticide. The little victims are seen constantly passing on their
way to the habitations of their purchasers gaily dressed out as though
for some great ceremony or happy festival. Of these, indeed, some are
disposed of as concubines, but many also are deliberately sold to be
brought up as prostitutes. It is looked upon as a simple mercantile
transaction, the children being transferred at once to the brothels,
whence they are hired out for the profit of their masters. Some of
those who are deserted or exposed to perish are reserved by the agents
for these places; but the principal supply is brought by kidnappers.
Proclamation after proclamation has been issued to complain of them,
but with little effect. The system appears rather on the increase than
otherwise.
The children thus purchased or picked up in the streets are educated
with care, taught to play on various kinds of instruments, to dance,
to sing, to perform in comedies or pantomimes, and to excel in many
graceful accomplishments, which render them agreeable. They are often
richly clothed, and adorned in such a way as to render them most
attractive to the _roués_ of Canton and Peking.
They do not often compress their feet, as it is a hindrance to their
movements, but may be seen in the streets occasionally--though not
often--with painted faces, looking boldly at the strangers who pass
along. Of the houses they frequent we have no particular description;
but they probably resemble much similar places of resort in civilized
countries. A peculiar feature of China, however, is displayed in the
floating brothels, which are the chief habitations of the prostitutes.
Licentious as the native of that empire is in the general turn of his
ideas, he makes a public display of his indulgence in those pleasures
which in Europe men affect, at least, to conceal from general view.
The floating brothels of the Pearl River are moored in conspicuous
situations, and distinguished from the other boats by the superior
style of their structure and decorations. The surface of the stream,
indeed, is studded with beautiful junks, which are the first objects
to attract the traveller’s eye as he approaches the provincial city of
Canton. Comparatively few of the women parade the streets, except when
they form part of a public procession, so that there is at least in the
heart of the town an appearance of morality.
[Illustration: CHINESE WOMAN (PROSTITUTE), ACCUSED OF DISORDERLY
CONDUCT BEFORE A JUDGE.
[_From_ ALEXANDER’S “_Illustrations of China_.”]]
Many of these brothel junks are called Flower Boats, and are resorted
to by numbers of the class. They form, indeed, whole streets in the
floating city on the Pearl River, which is one of the most remarkable
features of Canton. The prostitutes themselves, like all women of the
same sisterhood, lead a life of reckless extravagance--plunging while
they can into all the exciting pleasures which are offered by their
particular mode of life, careless of the future, and eagerly snatching
at anything which may release them from the change of dulness or time
for reflection. Diseases are very prevalent among them, and cause much
havoc among the men who frequent their boats or houses. They endeavour
to cure themselves by means of drugs and medicinal draughts, and by
this means concentrate the malady upon some secret vital part, whence
it shoots through the frame, but does not manifest itself until the
victim is all but destroyed. With the exception of an unusual paleness
and a heated appearance in the eyes, the prostitutes do not wear the
aspect of disease; but they, indeed, paint themselves inordinately to
mask the ravages of time or the maladies which afflict them.
The prostitutes of Canton are usually congregated in companies
or troops, each of which is under the government of a man who is
answerable for their conduct--if they rob, or disturb the peace, or
commit any gross offence against decency, or perpetrate any other
offence. National delicacy, however, has little to do with the
prohibitions which restrain them from entering certain parts of the
city, and forbid young men of rank and influence to hold intercourse
with them. The brothel junks, of lofty build, brightly painted, and
glittering with gaudy variegated flags, float in squadrons on the
water, are seen and known by all, and are resorted to by numbers of
the citizens. Persons pass to and from them without an attempt at
disguise or concealment. Rich men, on festive occasions, make up a
party of pleasure, embark in a gaily-decorated boat, send to one of
the prostitute junks, engage as many of the women as they please,
and spend the day in amusement with them. It is openly done, and no
disgrace attaches to it. The junks themselves are fitted up in the
interior--according to the class of prostitutes inhabiting them--with
all the appurtenances of luxury, and on board them is a perpetual gala.
It would be interesting to know how many of these boats are known to
float on the Pearl River, with the average number of prostitutes in
each.
But this is not the only, or the most offensive form which prostitution
assumes in China. An incident which occurred at Shensee a few years ago
illustrates another system, which is clandestine, though apparently
carried on to a considerable extent. A young widow resided there with
her mother-in-law, supporting herself and her companion by the wages
of prostitution. At length her occupation failed her; she was deserted
by her associates, and could procure no more rice or money by the
pursuit of her vicious calling. The elder woman, however, would not
hear of these excuses, ordered her daughter-in-law to obtain her usual
supplies from the man she had last cohabited with, and on her declaring
her inability, began to flog her. The prostitute defended herself,
and at last, taking up a sickle, struck her relative dead. She was
seized, tried, and condemned to be cut in pieces for the crime; but as
her mother-in-law had been guilty of an illegal act in forcing her to
prostitute herself, the sentence was changed to decapitation.
It is to be regretted that our sources of information on this
subject are not more copious. Travellers have had opportunities of
communicating more, but have refrained from doing so. We wait for a
separate and full account of prostitution in China[75].
OF PROSTITUTION IN JAPAN.
Among the innumerable islands scattered over the southern and eastern
oceans there are none more curious in their social aspects than Japan.
We find there a kind of native civilization, influenced indeed by
former intercourse with Europeans, but now complete within itself, and
isolated from all other systems in the world. The mountainous, rocky,
and arid country, has been fertilized from the centre to the sea by the
persevering industry of a hardy race; they found it poor, and they have
made it one of the richest agricultural regions in the globe. This fact
serves to illustrate the national character.
The Japanese, upon whose institutions much light has been thrown by the
learned and laborious researches of Mr. Thomas Rundall, of the Hakluyt
Society, may be described as a punctilious, haughty, vindictive, and
licentious people; but there is nothing vulgar in their composition.
Truth is held in reverence, hospitality is viewed as sacred, and the
bonds of friendship are regarded with extraordinary earnestness. St.
Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies, declared “the Japans” to be
the delight of his heart. There is, perhaps, more to admire than to
love in their character. They are certainly elevated far above many of
the nations who surround them, as well in the arts as in the amenities
of life. Virtue is a recognised principle, and this indicates a phase
of true civilization.
The character of the male is reflected by the female sex. Intelligent
and agreeable in their manners, affectionate in their family relations,
and faithful to their marriage vows, the women of Japan breathe all the
pride of virtue. The man who attempts the honour of a matron sometimes
encounters death in his adventure.
In illustration of this characteristic, Mr. Rundall relates an
interesting anecdote. A noble, going on a journey, left his wife at
home, and another man of rank made infamous proposals to her. Her scorn
and indignation only inflamed him to his purpose, which he effected in
spite of her denial. When her husband returned she received him with
much reserve, and when he asked why, bade him wait until the morrow,
when a grand feast was to be given. Among the guests was the noble
who had wronged her. They sat down on the terraced roof of the house,
and the festival began. After the repast the woman rose, declared the
injury she had suffered, and passionately entreated to be slain, as
a creature unfit to live. The guests, the husband foremost, besought
her to be calm; they strove to impress her with the idea that she had
done no wrong, that she was an innocent victim, though the author
of the outrage merited no less punishment than death. She thanked
them all kindly; she wept on her husband’s shoulder--she kissed him
affectionately--then, suddenly escaping from his embraces, rushed
precipitately to the edge of the terrace, and cast herself over the
parapet. In the confusion that ensued, the author of the mischief,
still unsuspected, for the hapless creature had not indicated the
offender, made his way down the stairs. When the rest of the party
arrived he was found weltering in his blood by the corse of his victim.
He had expiated his crime by committing suicide in the national manner,
by slashing himself across the abdomen with two slashes in the form of
a cross.