[137] Macdonald, Africana, i. 140.
[138] Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, p. 295.
[139] Harkness, Description of a Singular Aboriginal Race inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, p. 92.
[140] Fawcett, in Jour. Anthrop. Soc. Bombay, i. 28.
It is often said that a people’s civilisation may be measured by the position held by its women. But at least so far as the earlier stages of culture are concerned, this opinion is not supported by facts. Among several of the lowest races, including peoples like the Veddahs, Andaman Islanders, and Bushmans, the female sex is treated with far greater consideration than among many of the higher savages and barbarians. Travellers have not seldom noticed that of two neighbouring tribes the less cultured one sets in this respect an example to the other. “Among the Bushmans,” says Dr. Fritsch, “the female sex makes life-companions, among the A-bantu beasts of burden.”[141] Lewis and Clarke affirm that the status of woman in a savage tribe has no necessary relation even to its moral qualities in general. “The Indians,” they say, “whose treatment of the females is mildest, and who pay most deference to their opinions, are by no means the most distinguished for their virtues…. On the other hand, the tribes among whom the women are very much debased, possess the loftiest sense of honour, the greatest liberality, and all the good qualities of which their situation demands the exercise.”[142] That the condition of woman, or her relative independence, is no safe gauge of the general culture of a nation, also appears from a comparison between many of the lower races and the peoples of archaic civilisation.
[141] Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s, p. 444.
[142] Lewis and Clarke, op. cit. p. 441.
In China the condition of woman has always been inferior to that of man, and no generous sentiment tending to the amelioration of her social position has ever come from the Chinese sages.[143] Her children must pay her respect, but she in her turn owes to her husband the subjection of a child;[144] a wife is an infinitely less important personage than a mother in the Chinese social scale.[145] The husband has certainly not absolute power over his wife: he may not kill her, nor sell her without her consent,[146] nor even divorce her, except for certain causes specified by law.[147] But these causes are very elastic; it is said that “when a woman has any quality that is not good, it is but just and reasonable to turn her out of doors.”[148] And in a book containing the cream of all the moral writings of the Chinese, and intended chiefly for children, we read:—“Brothers are like hands and feet. A wife is like one’s clothes. When clothes are worn out, we can substitute those that are new. When hands and feet are cut off, it is difficult to obtain substitutes for them.”[149] A woman, on the other hand, cannot obtain legal separation on any account.[150] Confucius says that “man is the representative of Heaven, and is supreme over all things. Woman yields obedience to the instructions of man, and helps to carry out his principles. On this account she can determine nothing of herself, and is subject to the rule of the three obediences. When young, she must obey her father and elder brother; when married, she must obey her husband; when her husband is dead, she must obey her son.”[151] In Japan, also, a woman was formerly, in the eye of the law, a chattel rather than a person. “Having all her life under her father’s roof reverenced her superiors, she is expected to bring reverence to her new domicile, but not love. She must always obey but never be jealous. She must not be angry, no matter whom her husband may introduce into his household. She must wait upon him at his meals and must walk behind him, but not with him. When she dies her children go to her funeral, but not her husband.”[152] In Japan a man might repudiate his wife for the same reasons as in China,[153] and till the year 1873 a wife could not obtain separation according to law.[154] However, though the Japanese wife is “the first servant of the household,” training and public opinion require that she should be treated with respect, if the marriage be blessed with children.[155] She is addressed as “the honourable lady of the house,” and her position is said to be higher than in any other Oriental country.[156]
[143] Legge, Religions of China, pp. 107, 108, 111.
[144] de Groot, Religious System of China, (vol. ii. book) i. 550.