Suicide, condemned among western nations by human and divine laws
alike, is regarded by the Chinese with very different eyes. Posthumous
honours are even in some cases bestowed upon the victim, where death
was met in a worthy cause. Such would be suicide from grief at the
loss of a beloved parent, or from fear of being forced to break a vow
of eternal celibacy or widowhood. Candidates are for the most part
women, but the ordinary Chinaman occasionally indulges in suicide,
urged by one or other of two potent causes. Either he cannot pay his
debts and dreads the evil hour at the New Year, when coarse-tongued
creditors will throng his door, or he may himself be anxious to settle
a long-standing score of revenge against some one who has been
unfortunate enough to do him an injury. For this purpose he commits
suicide, it may be in the very house of his enemy, but at any rate in
such a manner as will be sure to implicate him and bring him under the
lash of the law. Nor is this difficult to effect in a country where
the ends of justice are not satisfied unless a life is given for a
life, where magistrates are venal, and the laws of evidence lax.
Occasionally a young wife is driven to commit suicide by the harshness
of her mother-in-law, but this is of rare occurrence, as the
consequences are terrible to the family of the guilty woman. The blood
relatives of the deceased repair to the chamber of death, and in the
injured victim's hand they place a broom. They then support the corpse
round the room, making its dead arm move the broom from side to side,
and thus sweep away wealth, happiness, and longevity from the accursed
house for ever.
The following extract from the _Peking Gazette_ of 14th September
1874, being a memorial by the Lieutenant Governor of Kiangsi, will
serve to show--though in this case the act was not consummated--that
under certain circumstances suicide is considered deserving of the
highest praise. In any case, public opinion in China has every little
to say against it:--
"The magistrate of the Hsin-yu district has reported to me that in
the second year of the present reign (1863) a young lady, the
daughter of a petty official, was betrothed to the son of
an expectant commissioner of the Salt Gabelle, and a day was fixed
upon for the marriage. The bridegroom, however, fell ill and died,
on which his _fiancee_ would have gone over to the family to see
after his interment, and remain there for life as an unmarried
wife. As it was, her mother would not allow her to do so, but
beguiled her into waiting till her father, then away on business,
should return home. Meanwhile, the old lady betrothed her to
another man belonging to a different family, whereupon she took
poison and nearly died. On being restored by medical aid, she
refused food altogether; and it was not until she was permitted to
carry out her first intentions that she would take nourishment at
all. Since then she has lived with her father and mother-in-law,
tending them and her late husband's grandmother with the utmost
care. They love her dearly, and are thus in a great measure
consoled for the loss of their son. Long thorns serve her for
hair-pins;[*] her dress is of cotton cloth; her food consists of
bitter herbs. Such privations she voluntarily accepts, and among
her relatives there is not one but respects her.
"The truth of the above report having been ascertained, I would
humbly recommend this virtuous lady, although the full time
prescribed by law has not yet expired,[+] for some mark[:] of Your
Majesty's approbation." Rescript:--Granted!
[*] Instead of the elaborate gold and silver ornaments usually worn by
Chinese women.
[+] A woman must be a widow before she is thirty years old, and remain
so for thirty years before she is entitled to the above reward.
This is both to guard against a possible relapse from her former
virtuous resolution, and to have some grounds for believing that
she was prompted so to act more by a sense of right than by any
ungallant neglect on the part of the other sex.
[:] Generally a tablet or banner, inscribed with well-chosen words of
praise.
The only strange part in this memorial is that the girl's mother was
not censured for trying to prevent her from acting the part of a
virtuous wife and filial daughter-in-law. It is also more than
probable that her early attempts at suicide, rather than any
subsequent household economy or dutiful behaviour, have secured for
this lady the coveted mark of Imperial approbation.
Suicide, while in an unsound state of mind, is rare; insanity itself,
whether temporary or permanent, being extremely uncommon in China.
Neither does the eye detect any of the vast asylums so numerous in
England for the reception of lunatics, idiots, deaf-mutes, cripples,
and the blind. There are a few such institutions here and there, but
not enough to constitute a national feature as with us. They are only
for the poorest of the poor, and are generally of more benefit to
dishonest managers than to anybody else. And yet in the streets of a
Chinese town we see a far less number of "unfortunates" than among our
own highly civilised communities. Blindness is the most common of the
above afflictions, so many losing their sight after an attack of
small-pox. But a Chinaman with a malformation of any kind is very
seldom seen; and, as we have said before, lunacy appears to be almost
unknown. Such suicides as take place are usually well-premeditated
acts, and are committed either out of revenge, or in obedience to the
"despotism of custom." Statistics are impossible, and we offer our
conclusions, founded upon observation alone, subject to whatever
correction more scientific investigators may hereafter be enabled to
produce.