THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI
The reader who has already learned from an earlier chapter of this
book how frequently women figure in the law-courts, will perhaps be
prepared for a not too flattering description of Chinese womankind
as represented in the leased Territory. If the litigious and
quarrelsome females were typical specimens of their sex it would
indeed be difficult to utter a word of truthful praise for the women
of Weihaiwei. But it is only fair to remember that it is just the
turbulent and masterful females that chiefly come within a British
magistrate's range of experience. Chaste and filial daughters, gentle
and companionable wives, brave and devoted mothers, bring happiness to
multitudes of cottage homes and are to be found in every village; but
they seldom come under the official notice of the authorities.
Women in Weihaiwei are, indeed, ignorant of nearly everything that is
generally implied by education; they are handicapped from childhood by
the thoroughly bad old custom of foot-binding; they know nothing of
the world beyond the limits of their own group of villages: yet the
lives they lead are probably, as a rule, happy, honourable and useful.
The Chinese suppose that a woman's proper sphere is the management of
the household affairs and the upbringing of her children: and Chinese
women seem as a rule to acquiesce willingly and cheerfully in their lot
as thus defined.
The woman's position as wife and mother is a highly honourable one:
filial piety--the cardinal Chinese virtue--is owed to the mother as
much as to the father, and the usual sacrificial rites are conducted in
honour of the maternal as well as the paternal ancestors of the family.
From prehistoric times the dignity of the mother has been regarded in
China as hardly inferior to that of the father,[158] subject of course
to the father's headship of the family. It would be a great mistake
to suppose that Chinese women are brutally or tyrannically treated by
their husbands. That cases of ill-treatment of women are sometimes met
with is undoubted, but as a rule the tyrant is not the husband but some
female member of the husband's family. Mothers-in-law are the domestic
tyrants of rural China. Besides treating the wife with severity they
often place the husband in a most unhappy dilemma.
If he wishes, as he often does, to protect his wife from the elder
lady's violence or bad temper he runs the risk of being denounced to
the neighbours--and perhaps to the local magistrate--as an unfilial
son; if he weakly and reluctantly takes his mother's side in a domestic
disagreement, or if--as is much more frequently the case--he pretends
to shut his eyes altogether to the quarrels of his women-folk, the wife
of his bosom may in a moment of anger or despair run away from him
or commit suicide. The only source of comfort to a young wife who is
unfortunate enough to displease her husband's mother is that some day,
in the course of nature, she herself will be in the proud position of a
mother-in-law. If she is of a cantankerous or tyrannical disposition,
or if her temper has been soured by her own domestic troubles, she will
then doubtless treat her son's wife with just as little kindness as she
received in her own early days of wifehood, and her daughter-in-law
will fear and dislike her just as she herself feared and disliked
her own husband's mother. Fortunately there are good and benevolent
mothers-in-law in Weihaiwei as well as bad ones: and it is only fair
to add that it is not always the wife who is meek and submissive and
the mother-in-law who wields the iron rod. Sometimes a high-spirited
and obstinate young woman will become absolute ruler of the
household--including her husband and his parents--before she has lived
a month in her new home, though her tenure of authority will always be
somewhat precarious until she has given birth to her first son. "Why
do you run away from a woman?" I once asked an unhappy husband whose
domestic troubles had driven him to the courts. "Is she not your wife,
and can you not make her obey you?" The young man's features broadened
into a somewhat mirthless smile as he replied, "I am afraid of her.
Eight men out of ten are afraid of their wives."
Women, indeed, are at the root of a large proportion of the cases
heard in the courts. No insignificant part of the duty of a magistrate
in Weihaiwei consists in the taming of village shrews. The number of
such women in China is much larger than might be supposed by many
Europeans, who regard the average Chinese wife as the patient slave
of a tyrannical master. The fact is that Chinese women, in spite of
their compressed feet and mincing gait, rule their households quite as
effectually as women do in countries further west, and in the lower
classes they frequently extend the sphere of their masterful activity
to their neighbours' houses as well. The result is not always conducive
to harmony. "For ther-as the womman hath the maistrie," wrote one of
the keenest students of human nature many centuries ago, "she maketh
to muche desray; ther neden none ensamples of this. The experience of
day by day oghte suffyse." This is a statement that multitudes of
woebegone husbands in Weihaiwei, were they readers of Chaucer, would
readily endorse.
The abject terror with which an uncompromising village shrew is
regarded by her male relatives and neighbours frequently creates
situations which would be somewhat ludicrous if they did not contain
an element of pathos. It is only when his women-folk make life
insupportable that an afflicted villager takes the step of appealing
for magisterial intervention: but the fact that such cases frequently
occur seems to indicate that domestic infelicities of a minor order
must be very common. "Two months ago," wrote a petitioner, "I bought a
piece of land in a neighbouring village, with the intention of building
a house on it. Unfortunately, after the purchase was completed I made
the discovery that my immediate neighbour was the most riotous female
in the whole village. This was a very annoying circumstance to me.
However I proceeded to build my house in a lawful and unostentatious
manner and hoped I should have no trouble. All went well until one day
when the female issued from her house and proceeded to pull my new
walls to pieces on the plea that they interfered with the good luck
(_fêng-shui_) of her own habitation. I stood by and requested her in
the kindest manner to leave me and my house alone. She repaid me with
the most violent abuse. How could I venture to hurl myself against the
spears of the enemy? She is the terror of the whole village and her
husband dares not interfere with her. I am sorry I ever bought the
land, and I had no idea she was to be my neighbour or I should not
have done so. I bought a charm to protect me against violent females,
and stuck it up on the doorway of my new house, but it does not seem
to have worked very well, and it has not frightened her at all.
Meanwhile my house is standing in ruins, and I have no remedy unless
the Magistrate, who loves the people as if they were his children, will
come to the rescue."
This case was settled easily enough. Another bristled with difficulties
owing to the fact that the plaintiff, in his petition, avoided any
mention whatsoever of his real ground of complaint. "I have fifty _mu_
of land [about eight acres]. I have two sons, the elder Ta-chü, the
younger Erh-chü. In the second moon of this year they set up separate
establishments[159] and entered upon possession of the ancestral
lands. I was at that time in mourning for my wife, and beyond my
_yang-lao-ti_[160] had no means of support for my old age. After they
had left me, what with the expenses of my wife's funeral and my own
personal requirements I found myself in debt to the extent of sixty
_tiao_ [approximately equivalent to six pounds sterling]. My two sons
would not pay my debts: on the contrary they drove me out of my own
house and refused to give me food. I am hungry and in hardship. My
elder son, Ta-chü, at last relented and wanted to do something for
me, but he was knocked down by Erh-chü and is confined to bed. I have
reasoned with Erh-chü about his evil courses, but every time I do so he
only beats me. The whole village is disgusted with his treatment of me
but dares not interfere. Now I get wet through when it rains and I have
to beg for a living. There is no rest for me. My lot has fallen in hard
places. This son of mine is no better than a _hsiao ching_.[161] Is
this the way to preserve the sacred human relationships?"
In this circumstantial petition no word of complaint is made against
the real offender--the petitioner's second son's wife, who, as I soon
ascertained, was a shrew of the worst order. To bring the action
nominally against his second son was a clever device on the part of the
petitioner, for no Chinese magistrate dare--except in almost unheard-of
circumstances--take the word of a son against his own father, and an
unfilial son is one of the worst of criminals. The old man presumed,
therefore, that the case would be at once decided in his favour, and
that his son would be imprisoned. His son's wife, the shrew, would
then have been compelled to make reparation for her former misconduct
and undertake to become a reformed character. When she had done this
the old man would return to the magistrate and obtain her husband's
release. As it happened, the process was not so circuitous as this,
for the woman's misdeeds were discovered by the independent action of
the court, and it was she, not her husband, who was sent to gaol. She
was released as soon as her own father's family had come forward and
entered--very reluctantly--into a bond to guarantee her future good
conduct.
It must be remembered that as soon as a woman has left her father's
roof and passes under the care of her husband--or rather of her
husband's parents, if they are still alive--her father's family have no
longer any legal control over her. Her husband's father and brothers
become to all intents and purposes her own father and brothers: and
to her father-in-law she owes the complete obedience that before
marriage she owed to her father. She has in fact changed her family.
Yet if she prove "unfilial"--that is, disobedient to her husband's
family--a magistrate may call upon her father's family to go security
for her future good conduct, on the ground that her unfilial behaviour
must be due to her bad bringing-up, for which her father's family is
responsible.
An English historian once pointed out that when two men sit on the
same horse both of them cannot ride in front at the same time. The
reference was to politics, the intimation being that there cannot be
two co-ordinate controlling powers in the active government of the
State: but the remark applies equally well to family life. If Crown
and Parliament (or two separate Houses of Parliament) cannot have
co-equal powers in the body-politic, neither can a man and a woman
have co-equal powers in the body-domestic: as there must be a supreme
authority in the State, so there must be a supreme authority in the
Family. Such used to be the theory of Englishmen, and such is still the
theory of the Chinese. They have a proverb which recalls Gardiner's
criticism of Clarendon's constitutional ideal. The Chinese say: "One
horse cannot carry two saddles; the loyal servant cannot serve two
masters."[162] But though in China the husband is legally possessed of
very extensive powers over his wife and has every right to administer
corporal punishment if she disobeys him or fails to treat his parents
with proper respect, it is very rarely indeed that one hears of such
powers being exercised in Weihaiwei.[163] No Chinese husband within
my experience at Weihaiwei has ever been convicted of wife-beating:
whereas the physical castigation of husbands by wives is by no means
unheard of.
The northern Chinese use a curious and highly appropriate expression to
describe a woman of the shrew type. They call her a _ma-chieh-ti_ or
"Curse-the-street woman." This is the kind of female who by blows or
threats drives her husband out of the house, follows him into the road,
and there--if he has sought safety in flight--proceeds to pour torrents
of abuse at the top of her voice upon her male and female neighbours
and all and sundry passers-by. If the village street happens to be
entirely empty she will address her remarks to the papered windows,
on the chance of there being listeners behind them. As a rule the
neighbours will come out to "see the fun." The abused persons generally
refrain from repartee, and the men--taking care to keep out of reach
of the nails of the _ma-chieh-ti_--gaze at her pensively and with
impassive features until her spent voice fades into a hoarse whisper
or physical exhaustion lays her helpless on the ground. But some
quarrelsome female neighbour--herself no mean mistress of words--will
often delight in advancing to a contest which is almost sure to end in
bleeding faces and torn clothes. Then husbands and grandfathers are
reluctantly compelled to intervene, and "peace-talkers" will help to
coax the two infuriated combatants into calmness. If their efforts are
unavailing, the result may be either a suicide or a lawsuit.
Women of this type feel themselves at home in the courts, and a fit
of anger will often send them hobbling off to the magistrate with
some trumpery and usually false accusation against a relation or a
neighbour. Such was a case brought by one Liu Hsia Shih against a
harmless old man whose real offence was that he had recommended her to
look after her babies instead of "cursing the street." I despatched a
constable to make enquiries into the matter, and she promptly handed
him the princely sum of one dollar with the suggestion that he should
give me a report favourable to herself. In accordance with very strict
regulations relating to bribery, the constable paid the money into
court. I summoned the parties to the suit, rebuked the female for
attempted bribery, and in dismissing her frivolous action adjudged the
dollar to her adversary. Probably the fact that he had got her money
was in her view even more exasperating than the loss of her case.
Very frequently a _ma-chieh-ti_ who brings her imagined wrongs to court
will point to wounds and scratches on her face and body as evidence
that she has been assaulted: whereas the injuries have been in all
probability self-inflicted. One Liang Wang Shih brought complaints of
ill-treatment against her adopted grandson and his wife. "They behave
in a most cruel manner," she said. "He incites her to bite me. She
bites my shoulder." She then proceeded partially to disrobe herself
in order that the supposed marks of her grand-daughter's teeth might
be inspected by the court. Another querulous woman forcibly prevented
a neighbour from putting a wall round his own vegetable-garden. "I
recently built a new house," explained her unfortunate neighbour. "This
woman's grandson died soon afterwards, and she declares that it was my
new house that killed him, by spoiling the _fêng-shui_ of her family.
She says she will not let me build my garden-wall until I restore her
grandson to life."
The marriage customs of Weihaiwei being in principle identical with
those prevailing in other parts of China, a detailed description
of them would be out of place here. It will be sufficient to say
that nearly every one gets married a few years after arrival at a
marriageable age, the bridegroom being as a rule rather older than
the bride. The majority of marriages are the outcome of long-standing
betrothals. A betrothal is in practice as binding as a marriage;
indeed, a betrothal that took place in the babyhood of both the
principals may, in certain circumstances, be regarded as an actual
marriage. If, for example, the youth dies when of marriageable age
but before the marriage has taken place, and if he was at the same
time an only son, the betrothed girl (whom he may or may not have
seen) will often be recognised as his legal wife; and if she preserves
her "widowhood" with fidelity her name will appear beside his own on
the tombstone and in the family registers. If the girl declares at
the death of her betrothed that she is willing to be regarded as his
widow, it then becomes possible (in accordance with an old and very
curious custom) for the dead youth and his living wife to be provided
with a "son" by adoption, and this "son"--who will probably be a young
nephew--nominally acts as principal mourner at the funeral, inherits
the deceased's share of the family property, and carries on the rites
of ancestral worship. If the girl or her family decline (as very
naturally they usually do) to recognise the betrothal contract as
binding after the bridegroom's death, the parents of the dead youth
will proceed to find him a bride in the person of a dead girl. This
girl must have died unmarried and should be of suitable age and family:
that is to say, a youth and maiden who could not have been betrothed to
each other in life should not be joined in matrimony after death.[164]
The arrangements for a wedding of this extraordinary nature are not
carried out directly by the parents of the dead boy and girl, but
through middlemen appointed by them (known as _kuei mei_ or "ghostly
go-betweens"), and many of the other formalities which attend an
ordinary marriage are observed with scrupulous care. If the girl has
already been buried in the graveyard of her own family her body is
exhumed and reburied beside that of the dead bridegroom: and on the
tombstone erected at the foot of the grave are duly carved their two
names as those of husband and wife. The custom is extremely old: it
is mentioned in the _Chou Li_, a book which deals with the laws and
customs of China from the twelfth century B.C. onwards. Its origin
may perhaps be traced to the same notions that lay at the root of
the widely-prevalent Oriental custom of widow immolation or _sati_:
the theory being that the sacrifice of widows and slaves at the tomb
of a dead man provided him in the comfortless world of shades with
the companionship to which he had been accustomed in life. But this
strange system of weddings between the dead is practised to-day in
Weihaiwei only in order to secure the perpetuation of the sacrificial
rites connected with the ancestral cult and to bring about a suitable
partition of the family property.
If a youth dies unmarried and is an only son, the necessary consequence
would appear to be the extinction of the family or the particular
branch which the deceased represented. To prevent the occurrence of
such a calamity it is necessary in China to provide the deceased with
a son by formal adoption. But the matter-of-fact Chinese mind declines
to contemplate the possibility of adopting a son for one who, being
a bachelor, was not in a position to have a legitimate heir in the
ordinary process of nature. It is therefore necessary to begin by
providing him with a wife; and this is done by the peculiar arrangement
just described, known locally as _ka_ (or _chieh_) _ssŭ ch'in_--the
"celebration of a dead marriage." As a rule it is not difficult for
parents to find a suitable wife for their dead son, for the family
of a girl who has died unmarried will always be glad to have their
deceased daughter raised to the honourable status of a married woman.
Sometimes, however, complicating circumstances arise. A man named Yü
Huai-yüeh died, without children and unmarried, in the tenth year of
Kuang Hsü--corresponding to 1884. At that time he had brothers living,
and as the family was in no danger of extinction it was not considered
necessary to take further action. During subsequent years the brothers
also died without issue, and the sorrowing relatives of the family
decided in 1897 that Yü Huai-yüeh should at last be provided with a
wife. In due time it was reported by "ghostly go-betweens" that a bride
with a suitable horoscope was to be found in the family of Hsia of the
neighbouring village of Chao Chia. This was a girl who had died as
long ago as 1876. In spite of the disparity of the dates of death the
ceremony was duly performed: thus a bride who had been in her grave for
more than a generation was wedded to a bridegroom who died thirteen
years before his own marriage.
In ordinary cases the repudiation of a betrothal contract while the
principals are both living is by law and custom visited by heavy
penalties. Paradoxical as the statement may appear, it is often
easier in China to get rid of a wife after the marriage ceremony has
taken place than to jilt her during the period of betrothal. There
is little or no romance about a Chinese engagement. The parents of
bride and bridegroom may or may not be known to each other; as a
rule they are strangers, for a girl is rarely married to a resident
in her own village. The reasons for this are not far to seek. As we
have seen, a typical Weihaiwei village is composed of persons of one
surname. The "prohibited degrees" in China are far more comprehensive
than those set forth in the English Book of Common Prayer. All
persons of the same surname are regarded as blood relations, and as
such they cannot intermarry. The father of a family must therefore
find husbands and wives for his children in some village other than
his own. In accordance with venerable custom, regular marriages are
negotiated neither by the parties chiefly concerned nor by their
parents. Betrothals are always in practice arranged through go-betweens
or middlemen (_mei jên_) who are understood to be the disinterested
friends of both the contracting parties. In return for their services
they receive various little presents and welcome invitations to sundry
little feasts.[165]
It is often declared that in China the bridegroom never has a chance of
seeing his bride or making her acquaintance until the fateful moment
when she raises her bridal veil: and many are the sad stories told
of the bitter disappointment of the girl who unexpectedly finds that
her husband is a decrepit old man, or the ardent young bridegroom who
suddenly realises that he is lord of an ugly or sour-faced wife instead
of the dainty beauty described by the deceitful go-between.
[Illustration: THREE WOMEN AND A HAYRICK (see p. 207).]
[Illustration: THREE GENERATIONS--AT THE VILLAGE GRINDSTONE
(see p. 246).]
But such regrettable incidents are rare in rural China. It is true
that marriage is hardly ever preceded by love-making, and that young
people have as a rule absolutely no say in the important matter of
the choice of a husband. Yet the women of the farming classes in a
rural district such as Weihaiwei are by no means concealed from public
view; if a young man does not catch a sight of his betrothed at some
village festival or a theatrical performance he is sure to have many
opportunities of beholding her at work in the fields at harvest time or
washing clothes at the side of the local brook. Sometimes, indeed, the
young couple grow up together in the same household almost like brother
and sister. This happens when, after child-betrothal has taken place,
the girl's parents die or are too poor to keep her. She then passes to
the bridegroom's family and is theoretically supposed to be brought up
as a daughter of the house, though sometimes she is treated as a mere
servant or drudge. Such a girl is known as a _t'uan-yüan hsi-fu_. As an
orphan, or the daughter of poor or helpless parents, she is expected to
cultivate a more than usually meek and respectful demeanour towards the
parents of her betrothed, and to be "thankful for small mercies." When
the boy's parents (for the boy himself has no say in the matter) decide
that a fitting time for the marriage has arrived, it is customary for
the girl to be sent temporarily to the care of some relative, where
she remains until the wedding-day. This is in order that in accordance
with the usual custom she may enjoy the privilege of being carried to
her husband's home in a red marriage-chair. In such a case as this the
bride and bridegroom are of course well acquainted with each other's
personal appearance and disposition, and have good reason to know,
before the wedding takes place, whether their married life is likely
to be a happy one. If the prospects are adverse, the bridegroom-elect
can only escape his doom by running away, for the betrothal cannot be
repudiated. The bride, poor child, has no choice in the matter one way
or another.
Marriages in Weiheiwei--in spite of the optimistic dictum of the
Chinese chronicler already quoted--are very often, like marriages
elsewhere, negotiated in a mercenary spirit and with a keen eye to
"business." The Roman _coemptio_ was undoubtedly in origin a system of
marriage by purchase; and perhaps the practice if not the theory is
in many Western countries the same to-day. In rural China the average
father wants to procure for his son the best possible wife at the
lowest possible cost; the girl's father wants to give his daughter
to the family that will allow him the largest compensation for his
own outlay. The financial part of the arrangements is so prominent in
the minds of the plain-speaking peasants of Weihaiwei that they will
talk of buying and selling their wives and daughters in much the same
way as they would talk of dealing in farm produce at the neighbouring
market. The local practice (as apart from the law of China) in matters
concerning marriage is in some respects curious. "My wife has run away
from me," stated a petitioner. "She lived with me nearly three years.
I know where she is, but I cannot make her come back to me because I
originally got her for nothing. She left me because I was too poor. She
took away with her nothing that was not her own. I have no complaint to
make against her."
The people of Weihaiwei know nothing of regular divorce proceedings.
The man whose wife deserts him or runs away with another man may
proceed to take unto himself a second wife without the least fear of
a Crown prosecution for bigamy. Under Chinese law a man may, indeed,
regularly divorce his wife for a variety of offences--including
rudeness to his parents and talkativeness--but in Weihaiwei few
husbands avail themselves of their rights in this respect; in the first
place the husband is reluctant--especially if he is still childless--to
lose the lady for whom he or his parents paid a good round sum in
cash, and, secondly, he is afraid of getting into trouble with her
family, who will quite probably drag him before the magistrate on a
charge of brutal treatment of a gentle and long-suffering wife--their
object being to "save face" and to extract from the husband substantial
pecuniary compensation. If his wife's family is numerous and wealthy,
the unhappy man who is wedded to an untamable shrew is often driven
to desperate expedients to break his chains. He may, indeed, emigrate
to Peking or Manchuria--the usual resorts of persons who find life
unbearable in Weihaiwei--but this will only result in shifting the
trouble from his own shoulders to those of his parents or brothers.
Only a few days before the penning of these lines a man named Shih
Kuan-yung came to report to me the mysterious death of his younger
brother. "His wife treated him shamefully," was the story. "He bore it
for several years, but the breaking-point came two days ago. He then
went off to his father-in-law's house, and yesterday he died there."
On inquiry it turned out that the wretched man, after an unusually
bitter passage of words with his wife, swallowed a dose of poison and
then went off to die in his wife's father's house as a protest against
his wife's bad conduct and as a sure means of bringing trouble upon
her relations. His brother suggested to the court that he, as the
deceased's only surviving relative, should be empowered to sell the
widow and pocket the proceeds as a solace for his bereavement. The
court refused to act upon this suggestion, but satisfied public opinion
by imposing a moderate punishment on the lady's family and compelling
it to defray all the expenses of the funeral.
The fact that the husband in this case could think of no better means
of punishing his wife than by dying on her father's doorstep shows
that though a woman on marriage theoretically passes from one _patria
potestas_ to another and thenceforward belongs solely to her husband's
family or _p'o chia_, her father's family or _niang-chia_ may in
certain circumstances retain considerable influence over her destiny
as a married woman; and if the family is rich and influential it may
make matters intensely disagreeable for the husband and his relations
should the woman find her new home less comfortable than the old one.
The woman whose _niang-chia_ is poor and without influence (as we
have seen in the case of a _t'uan-yüan hsi-fu_) rarely dares to hold
her head high or treat her _p'o chia_ with contempt. She knows that
henceforth it will be to her own interest to please her husband and his
parents as far as in her lies, for she can look for no help from her
father's family in the event of trouble. It is a terrible grief to a
young married woman to know that her own family has made up its mind
to take no further interest in her. A headman once reported to me that
a woman in his village, recently married, had committed suicide simply
because when the time came for her to pay the first ceremonial visit to
her father and mother after her wedding, no one was sent (in accordance
with the usual custom) from her old home to escort her thither. For
several days she moped and moaned, her incessant cry being, "I have no
_niang-chia_, I have no _niang-chia_"; and one day her husband found
her hanging dead from a peg in the wall.
Sometimes a girl's family will evince no interest whatever in her
doings as a married woman until her suicide gives them an opportunity
of showing that "blood is thicker than water." If they do not demand
a magisterial enquiry into the cause of death they will at least keep
a careful eye on the funeral arrangements and prevent the widower's
family from carrying them out with insufficient splendour or too
much regard to economy. An expensive funeral on such an occasion is
satisfactory to the dead woman's relations from two points of view: it
reflects glory on themselves and gives them "face," and it serves as a
costly punishment for the bereaved husband who has to pay the bill.
Though nearly every one in Weihaiwei, as in the rest of China, gets
married sooner or later, it sometimes happens that through the early
death of his betrothed or some other unavoidable cause a man finds
himself still unmarried at an age when his contemporaries are the
proud parents of large families. The older he is the harder will it
be for him to contract a marriage through the customary process of a
formal betrothal. He may indeed find a widow who is open to receive
an advantageous offer; but in China it is not considered creditable
or fitting for a widow to re-marry unless dire poverty compels her
to do so. The model Chinese widow is expected to serve and cherish
her late husband's parents as long as they live, and to devote her
spare time to the careful upbringing of her own children. A woman's
second marriage is not attended by the pomp and circumstance of the
first. It is only once in her life that a Chinese woman is entitled
to sit in the red chair of a bride. A common practice for an elderly
bachelor of Weihaiwei is to entrust a friend in Peking or some other
large centre of population with the task of procuring a wife for him by
the simple expedient of cash-purchase. The friend buys the woman and
brings her back to Weihaiwei on one of his return visits; and, as he
will very likely have been entrusted with several similar commissions,
he will possibly return with a bevy of damsels of varying charms and
widely different ages and degrees of comeliness. He is not, of course,
expected to go through his trouble for nothing; and indeed the business
is regarded as so lucrative that some men will secretly tout for
commissions to buy wives, and will go from Weihaiwei to Peking for that
express purpose.
The practice is, of course, highly discreditable to every one
concerned. It is a punishable offence in China, and is sternly
reprobated and discouraged by the British Government. As far as the
women themselves are concerned, however, the abuses that attend the
system are less serious than might be expected. In most cases they are
the daughters of extremely poor parents who cannot afford to support
them. By becoming the wives of poor but honest and respectable farmers
in a district like Weihaiwei, their position has certainly changed for
the better. Most of them are thoroughly cognisant of this fact; indeed,
it is rarely that they express a desire to leave their new homes even
when the Government offers them a free passage back to their native
place. Their position, be it remembered, is not a dishonourable one.
Though not always married according to the prescribed rites, they are
by general consent regarded as wives, and their children inherit the
family property as legitimate heirs. Sometimes, indeed, a poor girl
from Peking, who has been led to expect that she is being taken to a
rich young husband, feels a pang of bitter disappointment when she
finds herself face to face with a poor and elderly man whose entire
savings have been exhausted by the purchase of herself; yet in nine
cases out of ten she accepts with resignation what the gods have given
her, and settles down to the quiet life of a well-behaved matron. It is
indeed to the interest of the woman's purchaser that he should treat
her with kindness, for if she becomes seriously dissatisfied she may
cause him endless discomfort.
Not long ago eight men came to the South Division court at Weihaiwei
with a petition on behalf of one of their relatives, Yü K'o-chih, who
was married to a woman named Chao Shih, imported from Peking. She
had been selected and purchased for him in Peking by his brother, Yü
K'o-shun. Now this woman, explained the petitioners, was unfortunately
addicted to the luxurious habits and customs in vogue at the capital,
and took no pains to adapt herself to the simple life of Weihaiwei.
Chao Shih was, in fact, a self-willed person who did exactly what
she chose, and when any one remonstrated with her she threatened to
run away. Matters remained in this unsatisfactory condition until
she at last carried out her threat and disappeared. She was traced
to Weihaiwei city, a distance of about twelve miles. Her husband's
brother, Yü K'o-shun,[166] accompanied by some of his relatives, went
in pursuit of the fugitive, tracked her to her hiding-place, and hired
a cart to convey her back to her husband. She resolutely refused to get
into the cart and also declined to accept the alternative of riding
a mule. She was finally carried off by force and the party set out
on the homeward journey. Unfortunately the woman kicked and screamed
incessantly, thereby making such a disturbance on the highway that
a detective who happened to meet the noisy procession came to the
conclusion that it was a case of kidnapping, and promptly arrested
the whole party. The petitioners now requested that since the matter
had been clearly explained the magistrate would issue an order for
the release of the prisoners and allow the troublesome Chao Shih to
be returned to the arms of her anxious husband. The magistrate's
difficulty in this case was unexpectedly solved by the lady herself,
who assured the court that she was weary of a roving life and promised
to be a good and dutiful wife for the rest of her days.
Certainly the system of procuring wives from Peking is liable to
produce disappointments that are not all on the side of the women.
Listen to the tale of woe of one Chung Yen-shêng, a Weihaiwei resident
who in an ill-starred hour had decided to obtain for himself a wife
from the capital. "I have tried to make the best of her for over two
years," he said in court, "but it was no good. When I bought her I
didn't know she was an opium-smoker, but she was. I bought her for
forty-eight taels (between seven and eight pounds sterling). What
with travelling expenses and clothes she cost me altogether seventy
taels before she arrived in Weihaiwei. She was a failure. She was very
extravagant, and I had to sell some of my land to satisfy her. She
suddenly left me of her own accord in the tenth moon of last year. She
went to K'ung Chia village. I was glad to get rid of her. She went to
the house of K'ung Fu-hsiang. I met him afterwards and I told him he
might keep the woman for all I cared, but I wanted some of my money
back. He gave me forty-five taels. I think I ought to get sixty, and
I have come to court to obtain a judgment against him for the balance
of fifteen taels. (Cross-examined) I would not take the woman back on
any account. I have no children, but I shall not look for another wife.
My younger brother's branch can carry on the ancestral worship of our
family."
The old belief, long held by Europeans, that the Chinese habitually
practise polygamy probably became extinct some years ago. The fact is,
of course, that a Chinese has only one wife, though he may possess
legally recognised concubines. Among the agricultural classes in China
concubinage is not common, and in Weihaiwei it is comparatively rare.
The farmer who takes unto himself a concubine does it not only with the
knowledge but usually with the full approval of his wife, and as a duty
which (if his wife is childless) he owes to his ancestors. So far as
British experience goes in Weihaiwei the practice is not productive of
evil effects. If both a wife and a concubine become mothers, the family
property, when the time for partition arrives, is divided equally among
all the sons without any discrimination.[167] But it sometimes happens
that another child is born after the partition (_fên-chia_[168]) has
already taken place. If the mother of such child is the _ch'i_ or wife,
the whole of the family property will again be put as it were into the
melting-pot and re-divided--the latest-born child being entitled to a
share equal to that of each of his brothers. But if the child's mother
is only a concubine there will be no repartition, and either the child
will be given a portion of his parents' _yang-lao-ti_[169] or his
brothers will be morally obliged to make suitable provision for him
out of their respective shares. Practically, therefore, there is very
little difference in position between a wife's son and a concubine's
son.
A modified form of domestic slavery is occasionally found in Weihaiwei
as elsewhere in China: though slavery is indeed much too harsh a term
to apply to a form of service which is totally devoid of hardship
or degradation. The Chinese are as a rule indulgent masters and are
hardly ever (in the part of China with which we are dealing) guilty of
deliberate cruelty towards the inferior members of their households.
The so-called slaves are generally bought as young girls from poor
parents or guardians for the purpose of domestic service. They are
treated as subordinate members of the family, and as a rule partake
of much the same fare as their masters and mistresses. Their owners
are responsible for their good health and moral character, and are
expected to help them in due time to obtain respectable husbands. The
great majority of the people of Weihaiwei, being only small farmers,
are compelled to do their own house-work unaided: slave-girls are thus
found only in a few of the most prosperous households. An instance
will show that in spite of the indulgent treatment accorded to them,
slave-girls are regarded as the absolute property of their purchasers.
A petitioner named Ch'ü Wên-k'uei complained of "the unlawful
annexation of a female slave" of whom he declared himself to be the
rightful owner. "Five years ago I became by formal adoption the son of
my father's elder brother, who died childless. His widow, my adoptive
mother, bought a slave-girl two years ago for the sum of one hundred
dollars. My aunt and adoptive mother died two months ago and I have
inherited her property. The slave-girl is part of the property and
therefore by right belongs to me. Unfortunately a short time before
her death my adoptive mother lent the slave-girl to the Ts'ung family,
and the Ts'ung family now refuses to hand her over to me on the plea
that she has been betrothed to one of the little Ts'ungs. As I gave no
consent to her betrothal I consider it null and void, and I petition
for an order of the court requiring the Ts'ung family to return my
slave-girl without further ado." To the surprise of both parties
the court allowed the question of her disposal to be decided by the
slave-girl herself, and she elected to stay with the family of her
betrothed.
FOOTNOTES:
[158] Just the same was the theory of the old Sumerian law.
[159] See pp. 149 _seq._
[160] _Ibid._
[161] A bird that pecks at its parent's eyes as soon as it is fledged
and so is an example of unfilial conduct.
[162] _I ma pu pei shuang an; Chung ch'ên pu shih erh chu._
[163] In some other parts of the Empire things are apparently very
different. The Rev. J. Macgowan writes very strongly on the subject in
his _Sidelights on Chinese Life_, pp. 32 _seq._ But I cannot believe
that "sixty per cent. of the husbands throughout the Empire" practise
wife-beating "habitually" (p. 35).
[164] Mere disparity of age, however, is not regarded as an insuperable
objection to a "dead marriage."
[165] The custom of employing go-betweens is by no means exclusively
Chinese. It may be met with among races so far away as certain of the
tribes of British Columbia. (See Hill Tout's _British North America_,
p. 186.) For an ancient reference to the Chinese custom, see _Shih
Ching_, p. 157 (Legge).
[166] It is worth noting that it was not the husband who took the next
step but the husband's brother, by whom the woman had been brought
from Peking and who was held responsible by his brother and the clan
generally for her "success" as a family investment.
[167] By a peculiar fiction the children of a concubine are regarded as
the wife's children.
[168] See pp. 149 _seq._
[169] See pp. 149 _seq._