WIDOWS AND CHILDREN
The remarriage of a widow is, as we have seen, regarded in the
best circles with disapproval. The model wife--the wife to whom a
commemorative arch is erected on the roadside near her home and
whose name is handed down to posterity in the official chronicle of
her district as a pattern of virtue--is as scrupulously faithful
to her husband after his death as during his life. But very poor
families--such as are the majority of the families of Weihaiwei--cannot
afford to support widows for the mere joy of contemplating their
fidelity and chastity: hence we find that in practice a young widow
is often not only induced by her late husband's family to enter into
a second marriage and so rid them of the necessity of supporting her,
but is practically compelled to get married before the expiration of
the period of deep mourning, which lasts twenty-seven months. For a
widow to re-marry while in mourning for her husband is by Chinese law a
penal offence: though when the offence is committed on account of the
straitened circumstances of the widow and her first husband's family it
is generally allowed to pass without official notice or censure.
If a young widow has presented her late husband with children it is
less likely that his family will insist upon a second marriage than
if she is childless: indeed, if the family is well-to-do, it will
sometimes take active preventive measures if she herself contemplates
such a step. When a widow with children remarries, the children remain
with the first husband's family, or at any rate revert to that family
after the years of early childhood. It is when a childless young widow,
in spite of the solicitations of her husband's family, obstinately
refuses to take a second husband that domestic troubles arise which
are likely to end in the law-courts. If the widow's father-in-law
finds it impossible to remove her aversion to a second marriage he
will probably come to the court with a trumped-up charge against her
of "unfilial" behaviour. One Chang Yün-shêng brought an action in my
court against his deceased son's wife, who was a daughter of the Lin
family, for cruelty and want of respect. "She is disobedient," he said;
"she refuses to feed me, and she constantly assaults and vilifies my
wife and myself. In our old age we find such conduct on the part of our
daughter-in-law intolerable, and I implore the court to devise some
means of recalling her to a sense of duty and obedience."
The case soon wore a different aspect when the woman's father, Lin
Pa, put in an appearance and explained that Chang's sole object in
making a series of false and unjust accusations against a blameless
young woman was that he might be sure of magisterial sympathy and
help in the matter of compelling her to accept a second marriage.
This on investigation was found to be the key to the situation. Chang
regarded the woman as a family asset which he desired to realise in
cash. Her remarriage would have been negotiated purely as a mercantile
transaction, the profits of which would have gone into the money-bags
of Chang. As the covetous old man was well able to support his son's
wife--indeed she was living without expense to him on the property
which had come to her husband before his death as a result of
_fên-chia_[170]--the court required him to find substantial security
that in no circumstances would he attempt to dispose of the person of
his daughter-in-law against her will. The interference of the woman's
father in this case affords another proof that a woman's own family
does not necessarily abandon her for ever to the caprice of the family
into which she has married.
Chinese local histories contain many accounts of the various devices
resorted to by devoted widows for the purpose of avoiding the
dishonour of a second marriage. De Groot[171] quotes the case of a
child-widow--she was only fifteen years of age--who, as a reply to the
demands made upon her to enter into a second marriage, took a solemn
oath of chastity and confirmed it by cutting off her ears and placing
them on a dish. Thereupon, as the historian says, her relatives "gave
up their project," perhaps from pity or admiration of the poor child's
heroic conduct, perhaps from the belief that no self-respecting man
would care for an earless bride. If the annals of Weihaiwei show no
cases quite identical with this, they contain accounts of many a young
widow who has died to avoid remarriage.
But first let us consider a few typical cases of a less tragic nature.
Of Wang Shih, the wife of a graduate named Ch'i, we are told that when
her husband died leaving her with an infant boy, she, though still a
very young woman, refrained from a second marriage, lived an exemplary
life, educated her boy with exceptional care, and survived to the age
of ninety-five: living just long enough to witness the marriage of her
great-grandson. To live to a green old age is regarded as one of the
rewards of a virtuous life. In China, those whom the gods love die old.
Ch'ê Liu Shih, say the Annals of Ning-hai, was for similar reasons
rewarded by no less than one hundred and two years of life. This was
in the present dynasty. Judging by length of life, still higher virtue
must have been shown in the Yüan dynasty (1280-1367), for we read of
Liu Shih, a lady who lived to the age of one hundred and three, and was
celebrated as the happy mother of three noble sons. T'ang Chu Shih, a
Ning-hai widow of the Ming dynasty, became so famous for her virtuous
refusals of marriage that she was honoured by the local magistrate with
the official presentation of a laudatory scroll bearing the words "Pure
and chaste as frozen snow." Wang Sun Shih became a grass-widow about
ten days after her marriage, for her husband was obliged to go abroad.
After a short absence news was brought her that her lord was dead. She
was wretchedly poor, but she maintained an honourable widowhood to
her death. Yüeh Ch'i Shih was left a widow soon after marriage. The
family was very poor. She served her father-in-law and brought up her
son with the utmost zeal and care. She was most industrious (all this
is carefully recorded in the Annals) in looking after the household
and in preparing the morning and evening meals. She worked all her ten
fingers to the utmost without sparing herself. She died when still
young. Sun Liu Shih became a widow at the age of nineteen. She strongly
desired to die with her husband, but her parents-in-law pointed out
that they were old and required her services. She obeyed and remained
with them, refusing remarriage. She arranged to have a son adopted for
her husband, and educated him with the utmost care and self-sacrifice.
Wang Hsüeh Shih was left a widow at the age of twenty-five. She had a
little son aged three. She brought him up to manhood and arranged a
marriage for him. Both her son and his bride died within a year. She
then urged her father-in-law to take a concubine in order to carry on
the family, for her late husband had been an only son. Some years later
the Literary Chancellor of the Province presented an honorary tablet in
commemoration of her virtue.
Cases of this kind--where young widows refuse remarriage and devote
their lives to the service of their parents-in-law and their own
children--are so common that in many parts of China they are the rule
rather than the exception, though it is not every such case, of course,
that comes before the notice of the authorities and receives official
recognition. The matter of widows' suicides is one that perhaps
deserves more careful attention.
Sociological writers have pointed to the steady increase in suicide
as one of the most alarming characteristics of modern civilised life,
inasmuch as it seems to indicate a biological deterioration of the
race. Probably this is so in Europe, where religious and ethical
teachings set so high a value on life that the man who deprives himself
of it of his own accord is commonly regarded as either a criminal or
a lunatic; but we must beware of supposing that if suicide indicates
biological decay in England or Saxony it has the same indication among
the populations of the Far East. The common view that Orientals despise
life and will throw it away on the slenderest provocation is not,
indeed, strictly accurate. Self-slaughter in Weihaiwei and throughout
China is probably far commoner than anywhere in Europe, in spite of
the numerous European suicides traceable to the appalling mental and
moral degradation brought about by alcoholism; and there is no doubt
that the Oriental will hang or poison himself for reasons which would
be altogether insufficient to make the average European do so. But the
Oriental will never take this extreme step except from a motive which
from his point of view is all-compelling: so that after all the only
difference between the Oriental and the European in this respect seems
to lie in the nature of the motive, not in its intensity.
That the instinct of self-preservation is stronger among Europeans than
among Chinese is an unproved and perhaps unprovable thesis: though it
is true that Chinese women seem to have a contempt for death which
possibly arises from a quiescent imagination. One reason why suicides
are less common among Europeans is that the would-be suicide in a
country like England must not only face the natural fear of death
and (if he happens to believe in the teachings of his Church) the
probability or certainty of terrible sufferings in another state of
existence, but he is also obliged to contemplate the dishonour that
will besmirch his name and the consequent misery and discomfort that
will be brought upon his family.
These deterrent considerations can seldom affect the would-be
suicide in China. Both Confucianism and Buddhism, indeed, forbid
self-destruction: but Confucianism is vague on the subject of life
beyond the grave, and Buddhism as taught in China lays no stress on any
terrors that may await the suicide. The northern Chinese, including
those of Weihaiwei, are inclined to the belief that a suicide's only
punishment consists in being obliged as a lonely earth-bound spirit to
wander about in the neighbourhood of his old home until he can persuade
some living person to follow his example. When his victim yields to his
sinister suggestions and commits suicide the first ghost is set free:
though what use he makes of his freedom seems to be a doubtful point.
It then becomes the second ghost's turn to look for a victim. Thus all
apparently motiveless suicides are supposed to be caused by the ghostly
promptings of those who have taken their own lives in the past. When a
suicide of this kind takes place in a Weihaiwei village it is believed
that another suicide will inevitably follow within an extreme limit of
two years. Neither public opinion nor the law of the land stigmatises
suicide as a crime: persons who attempt and fail to kill themselves are
never prosecuted.
The attitude of the more philosophically-minded of the Chinese towards
the subject of suicide in general is perhaps somewhat similar to that
of the Stoic Epictetus, who on the one hand forbids it and on the other
hand calls attention to the fact that the door out of life is always
open to those who feel that they have good reason to use it. As for
self-destruction involving dishonour in the eyes of society, this is
so far from being the case in China that in certain circumstances the
exact opposite is the result. Posthumous honours have been showered
upon suicides by imperial edict, monuments have been erected to their
memory, they have been canonised and their tablets honoured with
official worship in the public temples, and they have bequeathed to
their relatives and descendants a glory that shines undimmed for many
successive generations.
These distinguished suicides, it should be hardly necessary to say,
have generally been women, and the glory of their deed has consisted in
the fidelity and heroism that have impelled them to follow their dead
husbands to the grave: but many of them are noble-minded statesmen and
patriots who have voluntarily sealed with their own blood some protest
against the follies or mistakes of emperors or have taken their own
lives as a means of drawing public attention to some grave danger that
menaced the State.[172]
We are accustomed to "topsy-turvydom" in China, and perhaps the
suicide-statistics might be cited as an example of this. "Suicide,"
says a recent writer on sociology, "is a phenomenon of which the male
sex possesses almost the monopoly."[173] If _female_ be substituted for
_male_ we have a fair statement of how affairs stand in Weihaiwei. Over
ninety per cent. of the persons who make away with themselves belong to
the female sex, and the great majority of them are young married women
or young widows. Since 1729, when it was proclaimed by imperial decree
that official honours were no longer to be conferred upon widows who
slew themselves on the occasion of their husbands' death, it has become
less common than formerly for young widows to practise the Chinese
equivalent of _sati_, but the custom is far from extinct, and at any
rate it seems to have left among women a readiness to fling away their
lives for reasons which to us appear singularly inadequate. Imperial
edicts did not and could not stamp out a custom which was of great
antiquity and deeply rooted in popular esteem. The British Government
in India forbade the practice of _sati_ long ago, and it has therefore
ceased to exist throughout the Indian Empire; but even now there is
strong reason to doubt whether popular opinion is on the side of the
Government in this matter, and whether the custom would not immediately
spring into vogue again if the British _raj_ were withdrawn.[174]
[Illustration: VILLAGE OF KU-SHAN-HOU, SHOWING HONORARY POLES IN FRONT
OF THE ANCESTRAL TEMPLE (see p. 324).]
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO FAITHFUL WIDOW, KU-SHAN-HOU (see p. 225).]
There is no doubt that the suicide of widows in China is a survival
of the ancient custom (which flourished in countries so far apart as
India and Peru, Africa and China) whereby wives and slaves were as a
matter of ordinary duty expected to follow their husbands and masters
to the grave; and though the day has probably long gone past when
such suicides were encouraged or actually enforced by the deceased's
relatives, it cannot be doubted that to this day public opinion in
China is strongly on the side of the widow who chooses to follow her
lord to the world of ghosts.[175]
The present-day theory of the matter held by the people of eastern
Shantung, including Weihaiwei, appears to be this. A woman undoubtedly
performs a meritorious act in following her husband to the
spirit-world, but her relations are fully justified in preventing her,
and indeed are obliged to prevent her, from throwing away her life if
they know of or guess her intention. If her husband has died leaving
to her the care of his aged parents who have no other daughters-in-law
to look after them, or if she has young children who require her care,
she does wrong to commit suicide, though the children are sometimes
ignored. The highest praise is reserved for a woman who temporarily
refrains from destroying herself in order that she may devote herself
to her husband's parents and her own offspring, but who, when they are
dead or independent of her care, then fulfils her original desire and
sacrifices herself to the spirit of her dead husband. The fact that
in any case the woman's relatives are considered bound to prevent, if
possible, the act of suicide from taking place, shows the beginning of
a realisation that self-destruction is in itself an evil. Time was when
they would not only make no attempt to save the woman's life, but, as
in India, would incite her and even compel her to die.
Of the stories of widows' suicides which have taken place during the
past few centuries in Weihaiwei and its neighbourhood, and which
were considered meritorious enough to deserve public honours and
special mention in the official Annals, a few examples may be found of
interest. The cases quoted are in no way unique or unusual, and there
is no reason to doubt their absolute authenticity.
Tsou Chao-tuan being sick of a mortal disease, his wife Ts'ung Shih and
his concubine Sun Shih made an agreement with one another that they
would follow him to death. As soon as he was dead the two women hanged
themselves. Members of the family quickly came to the rescue and cut
the ropes by which the women were suspended. Sun Shih the concubine was
already dead, but Ts'ung Shih the wife revived. A few days later she
again hanged herself, this time successfully. The wife was thirty years
of age, the concubine nineteen. The district-magistrate took official
notice of the matter, and caused a carved memorial to be set up
testifying to the two women's exemplary virtue. "They had performed an
act," he said, "which would cause their fragrant names to be remembered
for ever."
T'ao Liu Shih, daughter of Liu Fang-ch'ing, was betrothed to one T'ao,
but they were not married. T'ao died. When the death was announced to
her she hanged herself. [To appreciate the significance of this act it
should be remembered that there was no question of love-sickness: the
young couple in all probability had never spoken to or even seen each
other. As will be understood from explanations already given,[176] the
girl would as a matter of course be buried with her betrothed as his
wife, and would be given his name on the tombstone and the ancestral
tablets. Probably the youth's parents, in this as in most similar
cases, adopted a son for the dead couple; if so he would be brought
up to regard them as his father and mother, and would inherit their
property. Had the girl refrained from suicide and married some one
else, the family of the first betrothed might have provided him with a
dead wife, in accordance with the practice already described.[177]]
Chang Sun Shih, aged twenty-six, was the wife of Chang Ch'ing-kuang.
On the death of her husband she took an oath to follow him. The family
forcibly prevented her from killing herself. She pretended to submit
to life and to the rearing of her young child, so gradually the family
forbore to watch her. She then suddenly hanged herself.
Li Chu Shih, aged twenty-one, was the wife of Li T'ing-lun. Her husband
died, leaving her without children. She killed herself by jumping into
a well. A stone memorial to her is extant.
Ch'ên Yang Shih was the wife of Ch'ên Yüan-fu. On the death of her
husband she starved herself to death.
Pi Yü Shih, wife of Pi Ch'ang-jên, hanged herself by the side of her
husband's coffin. [Voluntary death beside the coffin is exceedingly
common and seems to represent an ancient custom.]
Chang T'ang Shih was the wife of Chang Ching-wên. On her husband's
death she devoted herself to bringing up a young daughter. She
preserved a chaste widowhood till the death of her daughter, and then
hanged herself.
Pi Chang Shih was the wife of Pi Hung-fan. Her husband when dying
gave instructions that as she was still young a second marriage was to
be arranged for her. To please him she said she would obey him. They
were childless. When he died her first action was to see that her late
husband was duly provided with an heir and successor, and she did this
by bringing about the formal adoption of one of his nephews. She then
proceeded to arrange a marriage for the nephew so that the eventual
continuation of the family might be properly provided for. "Now," she
said, "my duty is done. What is a lonely widow to go on living for?"
She then committed suicide.
Li Wang Shih was the wife of Li Yuan-po. When her husband was ill
she waited until he had only two more days to live, and then hanged
herself. [The question naturally arises, who tended the sick husband
during the last two days? The woman's own view might have been that by
dying first she would be ready to meet and help her husband's spirit
when it had crossed the dark flood, and would thus render him greater
service than by merely tending his last hours on earth. But a better
explanation of her action is given by the details furnished by the
chronicler in connection with the next case.]
Sun Shih, a Weihaiwei woman, had a dying husband. Fearing that his
last moments might be embittered by the thought that she would marry
some one else after his death she decided to hang herself before he
passed away, so that he would know she had remained true till death.
She therefore hanged herself, and a day later her husband died. This
happened in the Ming period, and in 1585 a monument was erected to her
memory.
Liang Wang Shih, aged twenty-one, was the wife of Liang K'o-jun. At
the time of her husband's death she was pregnant, so she did not
destroy herself immediately. In due time she gave birth to her child--a
daughter--who, however, soon died. She thereupon committed suicide.
Liu Ch'ên Shih, aged twenty-eight, was the wife of Liu Shêng. On her
husband's death the family feared she would hang herself, so they
watched her with special care. She smilingly assured them that she had
no such intention, so they relaxed their watchfulness. She then hanged
herself.
Hou Wang Shih tried to hang herself on the death of her husband. Some
female neighbours came in and saved her life: but she awaited another
opportunity and died by her own hand.
Chiang Lin Shih was a young bride. Two months after her marriage her
husband had to go away on business, and on the road he fell in with a
band of robbers and was killed by them. On hearing the news she hanged
herself.
Sung Wang Shih attempted to hang herself on the death of her husband,
but owing to the intervention of friends she was restored to life.
A second time she tried to hang herself, but the rope broke and her
purpose remained unfulfilled. Then she took poison, but the dose was
insufficient and she revived. Then the family tried to compel her to
marry again; but she tore her face with her nails till it streamed with
blood and resolutely refused to entertain the suggestion of a second
marriage. Finally she retired to her private apartment and succeeded in
strangling herself.
Wang Chao Shih was the wife of an hereditary _chih-hui_[178] of
Ning-hai, in the Ming dynasty. Her husband died a month after the
wedding. She remained faithful to him, and finally hanged herself. Two
maid-servants followed her example.
Wang Sun Shih was the concubine of a _chih-hui_. Her husband was killed
in battle. On hearing the news she hanged herself.
Yü Lu Shih swore on the death of her husband that she would not live
alone. Her family wept bitterly and begged her to give up her intention
to die, but she replied, "I look upon death as a going home. The wise
will understand me." Then in the night-time she strangled herself.
Liu Shih, the daughter of Liu Fang-ch'ing of Ch'êng-shan (the Shantung
Promontory) was betrothed to a Weihaiwei man named T'ao Tu-shêng.
A "lucky day" was chosen for the marriage, and the bride was being
escorted to her new home on that day when the news was brought her
of the bridegroom's sudden death. She wished to follow him to the
grave,[179] but her father and mother prevented her from carrying
out her wish. When they began to relax their watchfulness she hanged
herself. The district-magistrate presented an honorary scroll to the
family to commemorate the girl's fidelity and chastity.
Chou Ch'i Shih was the wife of a literary student. Her husband died,
and she hanged herself on the following New Year's Eve.
Tung Tu Shih was the second wife of a graduate. On her husband's death
she starved herself to death. An edict was issued authorising the
erection of an honorific portal.
Chang Shih was betrothed in childhood to a man named Yüan. He died
before the marriage took place, when the girl was only sixteen. She
begged to be allowed to carry out the full mourning rites prescribed
for a widow, but her family would not hear of it.[180] She then hanged
herself. In the Shun Chih period (1644-61) a decree was received
authorising the erection of a commemorative portal. She and her
betrothed were buried together as man and wife. The portal was erected
at the side of the tomb. Elegies, funeral odes, essays, scrolls
containing laudatory couplets, were composed by many of the local poets
and scholars in honour of this virtuous woman.
Liu Yü Shih was the wife of a man who died when he was away from home.
She wailed for him bitterly, and said, "My husband is dead and it is my
duty to go down to the grave with him: but he has left no son to carry
on the ancestral sacrifices. Therefore my heart is ill at ease." She
then sold her jewellery in order to provide money enough to enable her
husband's younger brother to get married at once. A bride was selected
and the marriage took place. In a year a boy was born, and Liu Yü Shih
said, "Now my husband is no longer childless and I can close my eyes in
death." That night she hanged herself. [It should be noted that in such
a case as this it would be the duty of the younger brother to surrender
one of his own sons in order that he might become the son and heir of
the deceased. If the younger brother had only one son and there was
no other relative of the appropriate generation available to become
adopted son to the elder, the son would be allowed to inherit the
property of his uncle and father and to carry on the ancestral rites
for both. This is known as _shuang t'iao_.]
Yang Wang Shih was the wife of Yang Shih-ch'in. Twenty-seven days after
the death of her husband she gave birth to a boy, who died within a
year. She then devoted herself to the care of her (husband's) parents.
A year or two later her father-in-law died, and the year after that her
mother-in-law died too. The young widow mourned unceasingly, saying,
"My husband and son are dead, my parents too have gone to their long
home, how dare I continue to exist between earth and sky?" Then she
begged the elders of the family to arrange the matter of adopting a son
for her late husband, and then she hanged herself.
Ch'ang Li Shih was married to a man who died in the reign of K'ang Hsi
(1662-1722). She wished to die with him, but she was with child and
therefore forbore to carry out her wish. Shortly afterwards a child was
born. It was a boy, who only lived seven days. Looking up to heaven she
sighed bitterly, saying, "When my husband died I refrained from dying
with him, for I hoped to become the mother of his child. Now the child,
too, is gone. It is as though my husband had twice died. Can I bear to
survive him all alone?" She then impressively urged her sisters-in-law
(wives of her late husband's brothers) to serve their mother-in-law
dutifully, and then took an oath to follow her lord to the lower world.
Her first resolution was to hang herself. Her sisters-in-law kept watch
on her so that she could not do this. Then she tried to take poison,
but the family, full of pity and affection, kept her from this too.
Full of vexation she cried out, "Am I to be the only one under all
heaven who longs for death yet cannot die?" Then she resolutely set
herself to starve to death. For many days she refused nourishment of
any kind, and on the sixteenth day of her fast she died. Many were the
funeral odes composed by noted poets in her honour, and in the reign of
Ch'ien Lung (1736-95) an honorary archway was erected to her memory and
her tablet was given a place in the local Shrine of Chastity and Filial
Piety.
The last story of this kind to be quoted has not been extracted from
the local Annals nor does it refer to events which actually took
place in Weihaiwei; it was told me, however, by a Weihaiwei resident
concerning a girl with whose family his own was distantly connected,
and as it throws some light on certain Chinese customs and possesses
a pathetic interest of its own though it is not essentially different
from many other such stories, a little space may be found for it here.
A girl of eighteen years of age, named Chang Shih, had been betrothed
since early childhood to a youth who lived in a neighbouring village,
and the bridal day was drawing near. It was going to be a great
occasion for every one concerned, for both families were well-to-do and
popular and the girl was known by all her friends to be as tender and
lovable as she was graceful and beautiful. But over the family hung a
cloud that burst as suddenly as a thunderstorm: for one day, when the
family were eagerly looking forward to the great event of the marriage,
the black news came of the illness and death of the bridegroom.
The parents of Chang Shih consulted together as to how they should
break the news to their daughter, who though she had never seen or
spoken to her betrothed had been brought up in full knowledge of the
fact that some day she would be his wife. She heard their whispers,
and with quick intuition felt certain that their conversation had some
reference to herself. Going to her mother, she questioned her. "What
bad news have you, mother?" she said. "Whatever it may be you must
tell your daughter." For a moment or two the elder woman was afraid to
speak plainly and showed embarrassment, but at last, breaking into sobs
and tears, she told the dismal story. "My daughter's wedding-day was
fixed and a happy marriage had been foretold. But now all our hopes are
ruined, for my daughter's betrothed has closed his eyes." The girl's
face showed no sign of emotion. Her mother wondered at this, for she
knew that her daughter was highly strung and was not one who could
readily dissemble her feelings. Without a word Chang Shih turned away
and retired to her own room. At this time she was gaily and carefully
dressed like most young Chinese ladies of good family: her pretty face
was powdered and rouged, and sweet-scented flowers and two little gold
ornaments adorned her shining hair. When an hour later she appeared
before her mother again she was almost unrecognisable. All trace of
powder and rouge was washed from her face, so that she had become--as
a European observer would have said--more beautiful than ever; her
long black hair, devoid of a single flower or ornament, was uncoiled
and hung loosely over her shoulders; her handsome embroidered dress had
been thrown off, and her lithe form was disfigured by a gown of coarse
sackcloth.
"My poor child," exclaimed her mother in amazement, "how is it that
you, who are still a maiden, have attired yourself like a widow? Are
you not still a member of your father's house? Are we of such poor
report that our daughter will be shunned by every family that has a
son still unbetrothed? Take off those ill-omened clothes that speak to
us only of death, and become again our gay little daughter who has yet
before her many years of happy life. It will not be long before the
go-betweens come knocking at our door with eager proposals of marriage
for the fairest little lady in the whole prefecture."
The girl listened, but never a smile appeared on her face. "It is my
mother's voice that speaks but the thoughts are not my mother's. Can
I, your daughter, ever give myself to another man while my husband
has gone all lonely down to the Yellow Springs?[181] I beseech you,
my mother, grant your daughter's last request. In seven days' time my
betrothed was to come to escort me to his home and I was to sit in
the red marriage-chair and to be carried away to be his bride. I pray
you, my mother, that my wedding-day may not be cancelled. When the
spirit of my husband comes for me on that day I shall be ready." The
girl's mother did her utmost to shake her daughter's resolution, for
she loved her dearly, and feared the girl was concealing some dreadful
intention in this strange request. But her words were quite without
avail, and she soon left her daughter to talk matters over with her
husband. It was not without some justifiable pride that they finally
decided to humour her; for in China the girl who on the death of her
betrothed renounces all thought of marriage with a living man and, by
remaining faithful to the dead, embraces at the same instant wifehood
and widowhood, brings glory and honour to her father's family and also
to the family of the dead bridegroom. The emperor's representative--the
head of the local civil government--will himself do homage to her
steadfast virtue, and will doubtless convey to her parents some mark of
imperial approval; while her native village will derive widespread fame
from the fact that it had once been her home.
The bridegroom's parents, in the case before us, received with
appreciative gladness the announcement of the girl's fixed
determination to remain faithful to their son, and they readily agreed
to fall in with her wish for the formality of a marriage between the
living and the dead. Preparations for the strange wedding went on
apace, and though there was no merriment and very little feasting,
strangers who suddenly arrived on the scene would never have guessed
that the bridegroom was lying stiff and cold with never a thought for
the beautiful bride that was to be his.
Though marriages of this kind--so strange and perhaps shocking to
Western notions--were by no means unknown, several years had elapsed
since such a ceremony had taken place in the district, and the local
interest shown in it was very great. On the day of the wedding two
large palanquins--one red, the other green--were carried on stalwart
shoulders from the bridegroom's house to that of the bride. At ordinary
marriages in Shantung the bridegroom usually goes in the red chair
to meet his bride while the green chair follows behind, generally
empty.[182] On arrival at the bride's house the bridegroom is received
with much ceremony and introduced to every one except his bride, whom
he is not allowed to see. Most of the introductions take place in a
guest-room, where he is regaled with light refreshments. Meanwhile the
red chair in which he arrived is taken into the inner courtyard to
await the bride. As soon as it is announced that she is ready to start,
the bridegroom takes ceremonious leave of the family and prepares for
departure. The bride in her red chair goes in front, he--in the green
chair this time--follows behind. Thus bride and bridegroom, who have
not yet exchanged a word, set out for the bridegroom's home. There they
are received by his relatives, and the other nuptial ceremonies follow
in due course.
To outward appearance there was little to suggest any unusual
circumstances in the marriage of Chang Shih. The red chair and green
chair came to her house in the usual way; the only difference was that
in the red chair there was no living bridegroom, only his _p'ai-wei_--a
white strip of paper bearing his name and age and the important words
_ling wei_--"the seat of the soul."[183]
On arrival at the home of Chang Shih, the _p'ai-wei_ was taken with
the deepest marks of respect out of the red chair and carried into the
house. It was reverently placed on a small shrine in the guest-chamber,
and in front of it were set a few small dishes of fruit and sweetmeats
and several sticks of burning incense. Then every member of the family
separately greeted it with a silent obeisance. When the time came for
departure, the _p'ai-wei_ was carefully carried out of doors again and
placed in the green chair, the red one being now occupied by Chang
Shih; and thus the strange bridal procession started home again, the
soul of the dead bridegroom escorting the body of the living bride.
On arrival at the house the _p'ai-wei_ was again taken out of its
chair and set up in the large hall where the dead man's family and
their guests were waiting to receive Chang Shih. For the time being
her widow's sackcloth had been cast aside, and she was clad in the
resplendent attire of a rich young bride. If her face bore signs of
inward emotion they were totally concealed beneath powder and rouge,
and not even her own parents could have told what thoughts or feelings
were uppermost at that time in their beautiful daughter's mind. She
went through the usual ceremonies that accompany a Chinese wedding, so
far as they could be carried out without the living presence of the
bridegroom.
Having paid the necessary reverence to Heaven and Earth, to the
souls of the ancestors of her new family, and finally to the living
members of that family in the order of their seniority, she retired
to the room that would in happier circumstances have been the bridal
chamber, and there she quickly divested herself of her gay wedding
robes and reassumed the dress of a widow in deepest mourning. Her
betrothed--her husband now--had already been laid in his coffin, but
in accordance with the usual Chinese custom many days had to elapse
between the coffining and the burial. Those days were devoted to the
elaborate rites always observed at a well-conducted Chinese funeral,
and the young girl having taken her place as chief mourner performed
her painful duties in a manner that gained her renewed respect and
admiration. At last came the day of the burial. From the home of
the living to the home of the dead marched a long procession of
wailing mourners robed in sackcloth; several bands of flute-players
and other musicians went in front and behind; there were scatterers
of paper money, coloured-flag bearers and trumpeters, whose duty it
was to conciliate and keep at a distance evil spirits and ill-omened
influences; there were lantern-bearers to pilot the dead man's soul;
there was a great paper image of the Road-clearing Spirit, borne in a
draped and tasselled pavilion; there was a dark tabernacle containing
the tablet to which the spirit of the deceased himself would in due
course be summoned; there was the long streamer, the _ling ching_ or
Banner of the Soul; and there was the coffin itself, almost entirely
concealed beneath its canopy, covered with richly embroidered scarlet
draperies.
It is not usual, nowadays, in eastern Shantung, for the female mourners
to accompany funeral processions throughout the whole sad journey,
but on this occasion the widowed maiden acted in accordance with the
ceremonies sanctioned by the sages of old,[184] for she followed
the coffin all the way to the grave. Then at last the attendant
mourners--members of her father's family and of the family of the
dead--were for the first time admitted to the secret of her intentions.
No sooner had the coffin been lowered than Chang Shih threw herself
into the grave and lay across the coffin-lid face downwards, as if to
embrace, for the first and last time, the husband whose form she had
never seen in life nor in death. For a few moments her fellow-mourners
waited in decorous silence until the violence of her passionate
outburst should have spent itself, but seeing that she did not stir one
of them at last begged her to leave the dead to the dead. "My place is
by my husband," was the girl's reply. "If he is with the dead, then
my place too is with the dead. Fill up the grave." To obey her behest
was out of the question, and for some time no one stirred. Knowing
the nature of the girl, her relatives felt sure that if they forcibly
removed her from her present position and compelled her to return home
with them she would seize the first opportunity of destroying herself.
Some one at last suggested that if they humoured her to the extent of
sprinkling her with a light covering of earth which she could easily
throw off as soon as the desire of life once more asserted itself,
she might be permanently restored to a normal condition and all might
be well. This suggestion was acted upon. Some handfuls of earth
were thrown loosely over the living and the dead, each mourner, in
accordance with custom, contributing a portion.[185] Having by this
time concluded the sacrificial rites and ceremonies, the mourners now
withdrew from the graveside. When some of the nearest relatives of
Chang Shih returned an hour later they found that the light covering
of earth had not been disturbed. The desire of life had never asserted
itself after all. The girl was dead.
Carefully and tenderly she was taken up and brought back to the sad
bridal chamber that had witnessed no bridal. Long before her beautiful
body had been prepared for burial and placed in its splendid coffin her
fame had already spread far through town and countryside. Vast was the
crowd of mourners who, when her body was once more laid beside that of
her husband, never to be disturbed again, flocked from distances of
over a thousand _li_ to show their admiration of the bravest of women
and most faithful of wives.
With the exception of the last, all these little stories have been
translated almost word for word from the official records of Weihaiwei
and the three neighbouring districts. Similar cases could be collected
by the thousand. Honorific portals and handsome marble monuments stand
by the roadside in every part of the Empire, silent witnesses to noble
Chinese womanhood. There is not a district in China that does not
possess its roll of women who have sacrificed their lives in obedience
to what they believed to be the call of a sacred obligation. Probably
none but the most bigoted or the most ignorant will read of these poor
women--many of them hardly more than children--with feelings of either
contempt or abhorrence. They died no doubt from a mistaken sense of
duty: but to die for an idea that is based on error surely requires
as much courage and resolution as to die for an idea that is radiant
with truth, and--what is perhaps of greater practical significance--the
women who go willingly to the grave for a cause that to us seems a poor
one may be counted on to suffer as cheerfully and die as bravely for a
cause that is truly great.
Brave women do not give birth to ignoble sons; and when we contemplate
the present and speculate as to the future condition of China we may
do well to remember that women like those of whom we have just read
are among the mothers of the great race that constitutes perhaps more
than a quarter of the world's population. The woman who offers herself
as a willing sacrifice to-day on the altar of what may be called a
domestic ideal is the mother of a man who may, to-morrow, offer himself
with readiness and gladness on the altar of a political or a national
ideal. In the marvellous evolution that has taken place during the
past half-century in the island Empire of Japan one has hardly known
which to admire most: the splendid daring and patriotism shown by the
Japanese soldier and civilian or the patience and trustfulness shown in
times of trial and hardship by the Japanese woman. China has surprises
in store for us as startling as those that were given us by Japan; and
not the least of these surprises, to many Western minds, will perhaps
be the unflinching steadiness of the Chinese soldier on the field
of battle when his regenerated country calls upon him to defend her
from the spoiler, and the heroism and fidelity of the Chinese woman
at home. Europeans will doubtless wonder at what they take to be the
sudden evolution of hitherto undreamed-of features in the Chinese
character; yet those supposed new features will only be the ancestral
qualities of loyalty and devotion directed into new channels broader
and deeper than the old.
In spite of these considerations, most Western readers, whatever may be
their views on the ethics of suicide, will probably confess themselves
utterly unable to understand how a young betrothed girl can work
herself into the state of intense emotional excitement which the act of
self-destruction implies, merely as the result of the untimely death
of the man to whom she happened to be engaged. The suicide of real
widows, distracted with grief for the loss of a beloved husband, they
can understand: but it cannot be love, and it can hardly be grief in
the ordinary sense, that induces a Chinese girl to throw away her life
when she hears of the decease of a young man with whom she has never
exchanged a word and whose face perhaps she has never seen. It may
be pointed out, in partial explanation of a phenomenon so strange to
Western notions, that not only is a betrothal in China practically as
binding as a marriage, but that marriage, and therefore the betrothal
that precedes it, are according to Chinese belief founded on mysterious
ante-natal causes. When the sceptical Englishman says jestingly that
"marriages are made in heaven" he is giving expression to a theory that
in China is held to be essentially true, though it is not expressed by
the Chinese in exactly the same terms. The theory is independent of
and perhaps older than Buddhism, though no doubt popular Buddhism has
done a great deal to strengthen it; and it has certainly helped to keep
the Chinese people satisfied with their traditional marriage customs,
which, as every one knows, are quite independent of love-making. It
is partly this theory that makes a Chinese woman contented and even
happy in the contemplation of her approaching marriage to an unknown
bridegroom, and often fixes in a girl's mind the idea that to give
herself to any man other than her first betrothed, even if the latter
died during the betrothal, would be as shameful a proceeding as to
commit an act of unfaithfulness in wedlock.
Probably it is only the fear of social disorder and many other
practical inconveniences that have prevented the second betrothals
and second marriages of women from being more severely discouraged by
public opinion than is actually the case. The first are in ordinary
practice passed over without comment, though the fact of the original
betrothal is "hushed up," or is at least not talked of; the second are
in many parts of China still regarded with austere disfavour, though
circumstances such as extreme poverty may render them necessary. In
any case, the girl who refuses a second betrothal is still honoured
and respected just as if she were a widow who had virtuously refused a
second marriage.
It should be noted that the discredit of a second marriage or the
lesser discredit of contracting a second betrothal does not attach to
the woman only. But a man is in practice more at liberty than a woman
to consult his own inclinations. The young widower who refrains from
a second marriage after his wife's death is regarded as deserving of
the greatest praise and respect, but if he is childless he is in the
dilemma of having to be either unfaithful to the memory of his wife
or undutiful towards his parents and ancestors; and as the parents
"count" more than the wife in China he must choose to be unfaithful
rather than undutiful. It is an important part of Chinese teaching that
the most unfilial of sons is he who has no children: the reason being,
of course, that childlessness means the extinction of the family and
the cessation of the ancestral sacrifices. Thus a childless widower
not only may, but must, seek a second marriage, especially if he has
no married brothers. A common way out of the difficulty is for the
widower to take a concubine: for the concubine's position in China is a
perfectly legal one, and her children, as we have seen, are legitimate.
After all, it is perhaps impossible for any European mind to
understand the real nature of the impulse that occasionally drives a
Chinese girl to kill herself on the death of an unknown betrothed;
not indeed because the occidental mind is essentially different from
the oriental, but because of the unbridged chasm that lies between
the social, religious and ethical systems and traditions of East and
West. Considerations of this kind should perhaps teach us something
of the limitations of our minds and characters, by showing how
comparative a thing is our boasted independence of thought, and with
what humiliating uniformity our ideals and impulses are conditioned
by the social and traditional surroundings in which we live and move.
However this may be, it will perhaps be comforting to know that the
Chinese, unsentimental as they are in their methods of courtship, are
no strangers to what in Europe we recognise as the romance of love.
As we saw in the last chapter, Chinese marriages, in spite of their
supposed pre-natal origin, are not always productive of lifelong
happiness; but as an offset to the melancholy picture there drawn of
many domestic infelicities, it is only fair to emphasise the unruffled
peace and contentment of very many Chinese households. In numerous
cases this happy condition of affairs is the result of a real if
somewhat undemonstrative love between husband and wife--a love that
is perhaps all the more likely to be firm and lasting because it
only sprang into existence after marriage. It is obviously difficult
to cite instances of this. It is the unhappy marriages, not the
happy ones, that in China--as everywhere else--engage the attention
of an administrator or a judge. But sometimes a suicide occurs in
circumstances which indicate that the moving impulse can only have been
deep grief for the death of a beloved wife or husband. I have had cause
to investigate officially no less than three such cases within two
months.
A man named Chang Chao-wan died after a short illness. A few hours
later, at midnight, his wife, who had previously shown every sign of
intense grief, hanged herself. It was ascertained that the couple had
lived a happy married life for nearly forty years. He was fifty-eight
years of age, she was fifty-seven. They had three sons, all grown-up.
In a case like this the action of the woman cannot be attributed to a
desire for notoriety or a hope of posthumous honours, for it is only
young widows who have any reason to expect such rewards.
The second instance is perhaps of greater interest. The story may be
stated in the words of the man who first reported it. "My second son,
Ts'ung Chia-lan, went to Kuantung (Manchuria) a few months after his
marriage. This was eight years ago. He went abroad because the family
was poor and he wanted to make some money. His wife was very miserable
when he went and begged him not to go, but he promised to come back to
her. He disappeared, and for years we heard nothing of him. His wife
made no complaint, but she was unhappy. A few months ago a returned
emigrant told us that he had seen my son in Manchuria. When I saw that
this news made his wife glad I sent my elder son, Chia-lin, to look for
him and bring him home. My elder son was away for more than two months
and never found him. Then he returned by himself and told us there was
no hope of our ever seeing Chia-lan again. His wife heard him say this.
We tried to console her. She said nothing at all, but two hours after
my elder son had come home she took a dose of arsenic and died. She was
a good woman, and no one ever had a complaint to make against her. She
had no child."
The last case to be mentioned shows that it is not women only who can
throw away their lives on the death of their loved ones. A native of
the village of Hai-hsi-t'ou came to report the suicide of a nephew,
Tung Ch'i-tzŭ. "He was twenty years old," said my informant. "He
was deeply attached to his wife and she to him. She died about six
weeks ago. They had been married less than two years and they had no
children. He was very unhappy after her death, and would not let any
one console him. He was left alone, and yesterday when his father had
gone to market he hanged himself from a beam with his own girdle. There
was no other motive for the suicide. He died because he loved his wife
too much, and could not live without her."
Deaths and suicides have made a dismal chapter, and perhaps no better
way could be devised of lightening the gloom than by turning to a
source of brightness that does more to make homes happy--Chinese
homes and Western homes--than anything else in the world. To say that
the Chinese love their children would be unnecessary: they would be
a unique race if they did not. But it may not be accepted equally
readily that Chinese girls and boys are charming and lovable even when
compared with the modern children of western Europe and America, who
have all the resources of science and civilisation lavished on their
upbringing, and for whose benefit has been founded something like a
special branch of psychology. Perhaps there has been no section of
the Chinese people more hopelessly misunderstood by Western folk than
the children. It is not unnatural that such should be the case. It is
but rarely that feelings of real sympathy and mutual appreciation can
exist between Chinese children and adult Europeans. It would be futile
to deny the fact that by the Chinese child we are almost sure to be
regarded as fearfully and wonderfully ugly--and all good children
have an instinctive dislike of the ugly. Our clothing is ridiculous;
our eyes and noses are deformed; our hair (unless it is black) looks
diseased; our language--even if we profess to speak Chinese--is
strangely uncouth; and the particular blandishments we attempt are
not of the kind to which they are accustomed, or to which they know
how to respond. There is no use in saying "goo-goo" to an infant that
expects to be addressed with a conciliating "fo-fo"; nor should we be
surprised if we fail to win the approval of a shy Chinese youngster
by talking to him on the topics that would rouse the interest of the
twentieth-century English schoolboy. As likely as not he will remain
stolidly indifferent, and will stare at his well-meaning interlocutor
with a disconcerting lack--or apparent lack--of intelligence. No wonder
is it that the mortified foreigner often goes away complaining that
Chinese children are ugly, stupid, horrid and ungracious little urchins
and that he will never try to make friends with them again.
Even distance does not seem to lend much enchantment to the Chinese
child from the European point of view. He is commonly caricatured
somewhat after this fashion: he never smiles; he has hardly any nose
and possesses oblique eyes that are almost invisible; he wears too many
clothes in winter, so that he looks like an animated plum-pudding; he
wears too little in summer--his birthday dress, to be explicit--and
looks like a jointed wooden doll; he has a horror of "romping"; he is
unwashed, deceitful and cruel; he cultivates a solemnity of demeanour
with the view of leading people to think he is precociously wise and
preternaturally good; and he is always mouthing philosophic saws
from Confucius which he has learned by rote and of which he neither
knows nor wants to know the meaning. Of course there is much in this
description that is totally false and misleading, but it is not
difficult to see the superficial characteristics that may give such a
caricature a certain amount of plausibility.
To form a true idea of what Chinese children really are we must take
them unawares among their own people, if we are fortunate enough to
have opportunities of doing so. We must go into the country fields
and villages and see them at work and play; we must watch them at
their daily round of duties and pleasures, at school (one of the
old-fashioned schools if possible), in times of sickness and pain,
on occasions of festivals, family gatherings, weddings and funerals.
The more we see of them in their own houses and surrounded by their
own relatives the better we shall understand them and the more we
shall like them. They are highly intelligent, quick to see the merry
side of things, brimful of healthy animal spirits, and exceedingly
companionable. This applies not only to the boys but also in a smaller
degree to the girls, who, however, are much less talkative than they
come to be in later years and are apt to be more timid and shy than
their little brothers. They are terribly handicapped by the cruel
custom of foot-binding, which it is earnestly to be hoped will before
long be utterly abolished throughout China. It has undoubtedly caused
a far greater aggregate amount of pain and misery in China than has
been produced by opium-smoking. In spite of the cruelty involved in
foot-binding, the rather common impression that the Chinese have no
affection for their daughters or regard the birth of a girl as a
domestic calamity is very far from correct. That a son is welcomed
with greater joy than a daughter is true, but that a daughter is not
welcomed at all is a view which is daily contradicted by experience.
Mothers, especially, are often as devoted to their girls as they are
to their boys. In the autumn of 1909 a headman reported to me that a
woman of his village had killed herself because she was distracted with
grief on account of the death of her child. The child in question was
a girl, fourteen years of age. "Her mother," said the headman, "begged
Heaven (_Lao T'ien-yeh_) to bring her daughter back to life, and she
declared that she would willingly give her life in exchange for that of
her daughter." It is erroneous to suppose that the old loving relations
between mother and daughter are necessarily severed on the daughter's
marriage. It is often the case that a young married woman's greatest
happiness consists in periodical visits to her old home.
On the whole it may be said that Chinese children are neither better
nor worse, neither more nor less delightful, than the children of
the West, and that child-nature is much the same all the world over.
Among their most conspicuous qualities are their good-humour and
patience. Chinese children bear illness and pain like little heroes.
This need not be ascribed entirely to the oft-asserted cause that
"Chinese have no nerves," though indeed there is good reason to believe
that the people of the West (perhaps owing to the relaxing effects
of a pampering civilisation) are considerably more sensitive to
physical suffering than the people of the Orient. Another interesting
characteristic of Chinese children consists in the fact that good
manners very often appear, at first sight, to be innate rather than
acquired. Even illiterate children, and the children of illiterate
parents, seem to behave with a politeness and grace of manner towards
their elders and superiors (more particularly, of course, those of
their own race) which they certainly have not learned by direct
teaching. A well-bred European child sometimes gives one the impression
that he has learned his exemplary "manners" as a lesson, just as he
learns the tributaries of the Ouse or the dates of the kings. The most
remarkable point about the Chinese child's "manners" is the grace and
ease with which he displays them and the entire absence of _mauvaise
honte_. No doubt the truth of the matter is that courtesy is no more
a natural quality in the Chinese than in other races. The average
peasant's child in north China, who is always treated with what seems
to us excessive indulgence--being allowed to run wild and hardly ever
punished for his childish acts of "naughtiness" and disobedience--grows
up a devoted and obedient son and most courteous and conciliatory, as a
rule, in his dealings with the outside world; but these graces were not
born in him except possibly in the merely potential form of hereditary
predisposition. He has acquired them unconsciously through the medium
of that "endless imitation" which, as Wordsworth said, seems at times
to be the "whole vocation" of a healthy child. Doubtless he learns the
forms of politeness to some extent from his schoolmaster--and indeed
if ethical teaching can make a good boy, then the educated Chinese boy
should be perfect; but that school teaching is not everything is proved
by the fact that in a poor country-district like Weihaiwei, where only
a small proportion of the children go to school, there is no essential
difference in "manners" between the lettered and the ignorant, though
the educated are of course quicker in intelligence and more adaptable.
Perhaps the explanation of the matter is that in China the adult's
life and the child's life are not kept too far apart from each other,
so that the child has endless opportunities of indulging his imitative
faculties to the utmost. Children live in the bosom of the family, and
it is very rarely indeed that their natural high spirits are frowned
down with the chilling remark that "little boys should be seen and not
heard." Strange to say, the sparing of the rod does not seem to have
the effect of spoiling the Chinese child, who is not more troublesome
or unruly than the average European child. The Chinese, indeed, have a
proverb which shows that they, too, understand the value of occasional
corporal punishment: "From the end of the rod pops forth a filial
son." But the rod is allowed to become very dusty in most Chinese
homes, and the filial son seems to come all the same.
Female infanticide is not practised in Weihaiwei. The only infants ever
made away with are the offspring of illicit connections, and in such
cases no difference is made between male and female. A young woman who
has been seduced is--or was till recent years--practically compelled to
destroy her illegitimate child; her own life would become insupportable
otherwise, and she would probably be driven to suicide. The voice of
the people would be unanimous against the Government if it caused
the mother in such a case to be prosecuted on a charge of homicide,
although her own female relations and neighbours often treat her so
unmercifully as a result of her fall that she sometimes chooses to die
by her own hand rather than submit to their ceaseless revilings.
Chinese law strongly supports the sanctity of the home and is
very severe on unfaithful wives, but it regards the killing of an
illegitimate child as a very light offence,--indeed case-made law
regards it as no offence at all provided the killing be done at the
time of the child's birth or before it. Fortunately cases of this kind
in Weihaiwei are very rare. But the poorest classes have one most
objectionable custom which seems to be strangely inconsistent with
the undoubted fondness of parents for their children. This is the
practice of throwing away or exposing the bodies of children who have
died in infancy or in very early childhood. This seems to indicate
an extraordinary degree of callousness in the natures of the people.
How a mother can fondle her child lovingly and watch over it with the
utmost care and unselfishness when it is sick, and yet can bear to see
its little body thrown into an open ditch or left on a hillside to
become the prey of wolves or the village dogs, is perhaps one of those
mysterious anomalies in which the Chinese character is said to abound.
Even New Guinea babies are treated after death with more respect than
is sometimes the case in China.[186] Needless to say the British
Government has not remained inactive in the matter, and the man who now
refrains from giving his infant child decent burial knows that he runs
a risk of punishment.
The only excuses that can be made for the people in this respect are
not based on their poverty (for poverty does not prevent them from
burying their adult relatives with all proper decorum) but on their
theory that an infant "does not count" in the scheme of family and
ancestral relationships. No mourning of any kind is worn for children
who die under the age of about eight, and only a minor degree of
mourning for older children who die unmarried and unmarriageable. Even
when a young child's body is given a place in the family burial-ground
care is always taken to choose a grave-site that is not likely to
be selected for the burial of any senior,[187] for it is considered
foolish and unnecessary to waste good _fêng-shui_ on a mere child, who
has left no descendants whose fortunes it can influence.
Young children are not indeed regarded as soulless,[188] for there are
touching ceremonies whereby a mother seeks to recall the soul of her
child when it seems likely to fly away for ever; but child-spirits are
not supposed to exercise any control over the welfare of the family.
They never "grow up" in the spirit-world, but merely remain infant
ghosts, powerful in nothing. The ancestral temples preserve no records
of dead children nor are their names inscribed on spirit tablets.
This is very different from the state of things existing among a race
that is ethnically far inferior to the Chinese, namely the Vaeddas of
Ceylon, who pay special attention to "the shades of departed children,
the 'infant spirits,'"[189] and often call upon them for aid in times
of unhappiness or calamity.
Fortunately the average child in Weihaiwei is an exceedingly healthy
little piece of humanity and is not in the habit of worrying about
the ultimate fate of either his body or his soul. He derives pleasure
from the knowledge that he is loved by his elders, and in his rather
undemonstrative way he loves them in return. He lives on simple fare
that European children would scorn, but it is only the poorest of the
poor whose children cannot _ch'ih pao_ (eat as much as they like)
at least once a day. A villager in Weihaiwei who gave his children
too little to eat would probably hear highly unflattering opinions
about himself from his next-door neighbours, and to "save his face"
he would be obliged to show less parsimony in matters of diet. That
under-feeding cannot be common in Weihaiwei except in times of actual
famine is proved not only by the excellent health and spirits of the
children but by the fine physical development of the adults and the
great age often attained by them.
We are told by many observers that theory and practice in China are
often widely divergent, but in one matter at least they absolutely
coincide. The Chinese hold that the greatest treasure their country
can possess consists not in gold and silver, mines and railways,
factories and shipping, but in an ever-increasing army of healthy boys
and girls--the future fathers and mothers of the race. If the family
decays the State decays; if the family prospers the State prospers:
for what is the State but a vast aggregate of families? What indeed is
the Emperor himself but the Father of the State and thus the Patriarch
of every family within it? This is the Chinese theory, and there is
hardly a man in China who does not do his best to prove by practical
demonstration that the theory is a correct one. "Lo, children are an
heritage of the Lord," sings the Psalmist; "Happy is the man that hath
his quiver full of them." The average Chinese peasant must be a very
happy man.
[Illustration: AN AFTERNOON SIESTA (see p. 252).]
[Illustration: WASHING CLOTHES (see p. 207).]
FOOTNOTES:
[170] See p, 149. But it should be noted that if the old man had
persuaded her to re-marry, this property would have reverted to himself
or his family, and would perhaps have been added to his _yang-lao-ti_
(see pp. 149 _seq._). A widow has only a life-interest in her husband's
real property, and even that life-interest is extinguished if she
marries into another family.
[171] _Religious System of China_, vol. ii. bk. 1, p. 466.
[172] While this chapter was being written the newspapers reported a
case of a patriot's suicide which may be cited as typical. "An Imperial
Edict issued on September 5," says _The Times_ of September 21, 1909,
"bestowed posthumous honours upon the Metropolitan official Yung Lin,
who recently 'sacrificed his life in order to display his patriotism.'
The Edict is in reply to a memorial from the supervising censor of the
Metropolitan circuit and others asking for the Imperial commendation
of an act which has attracted great attention in Peking. Yung Lin,
a Manchu of small official rank but high literary gifts, bemoaning
the fate of his country, recently presented a petition to the Regent
'dealing with the circumstances of the times, and then gave up his
life.' Unable to present it in person, he sent his memorial to the
Press. It is a model of finished literary style. Imperial approval
will certainly be given to its official publication throughout the
Empire." In the course of his memorial, in which he alluded to and
bewailed the misfortunes of China and the crimes of those in high
places, Yung Lin expressed his belief that unless reforms speedily take
place, the "foreigners will seize the excuse of protection for chapels
and Legations to increase their garrisons, while secretly pursuing
their scheme for converting their sojourn in the land into ownership."
He also makes some remarks which, though they would meet the hearty
support of a Ruskin, will not be relished by foreign traders. Writing
of the waste of the national resources, he says that "vast sums of
money are frittered away in the purchase of useless foreign goods."
After sending his memorial to the Press, Yung Lin cut his throat.
The direct or indirect results of this affair will perhaps be more
far-reaching than may at present be thought likely.
[173] G. Chatterton Hill, _Heredity and Selection in Sociology_, p. 187.
[174] See Campbell Oman's _Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India_
(Fisher Unwin: 1908), p. 108.
[175] Cases in modern times where Chinese widows have actually been
compelled to commit suicide on their husbands' death are referred to in
Smith's _Chinese Characteristics_ (5th ed.), p. 215.
[176] See p. 203.
[177] See pp. 204 _seq._
[178] See p. 47.
[179] The technical term almost invariably used for this action is
_hsün_, which is the word used for the old practice of _burying alive
with the dead_. In modern times, as in all these stories, the word
signifies the death of a widow who commits suicide to prove her wifely
fidelity.
[180] Obviously because they wished to arrange a new betrothal for her.
[181] The Underworld of disembodied souls.
[182] In Peking and many other places the bridegroom does not _ying
ch'in_ or "go to meet the bride." He stays at home and awaits her
arrival.
[183] This is a temporary tablet in which the soul of the deceased
is supposed to reside till after the burial, when it is formally
summoned to take up its abode in the wooden tablet intended to remain
permanently in the possession of the family. In the present case the
temporary tablet would be ceremonially destroyed by fire after it had
served its purpose.
[184] See the _Chou Li_. In Peking and many other places the women
still accompany the funeral party to the graveside.
[185] In China the belief that inspires this practice is that the
greater the number of mourners who throw handfuls of earth on the
coffin, the greater will be the prosperity of the family in future
and the more numerous its descendants. The custom is not, of course,
confined to China. It is mentioned by Sir Thomas Browne as a practice
of the Christians, "who thought it too little, if they threw not the
earth thrice upon the interred body" (_Urn-Burial_, ch. iv.).
[186] See Grant Allen's _The Evolution of the Idea of God_, pp. 52 and
69.
[187] See p. 266.
[188] According to the Fijian Islanders the souls of the unmarried are
soon extinguished in the Underworld. See Tylor's _Primitive Culture_
(4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 23.
[189] Tylor, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 117.