We are prone to sympathize with the Chinese woman because of the plurality of wives, but one sees little evidence of the need of our sympathy. The Chinese have a saying: “The head wife should cherish the inferior wives as the great tree cherishes the creepers that gather round it.” I do not know whether this sage advice is always followed, but I have seen the several wives of many officials, all friendly as sisters and all working for the common good of the home.
I called upon the wife of an official and was met at the door by two ladies. One of them was a very old Chinese lady, with the smallest bound feet that I have ever seen; they could not have been more than 2½ inches in length. She was partially supported on one side by a servant, and on the other by a beautifully dressed Manchu woman. After I was seated in the place of honour at the left of the elderly lady, and tea was brought, I asked the usual question, “What is your honourable age?” She replied, “Sixty-two”; then, as always follows, I said, “How many children have you?” She replied, “Five.” I asked their ages, and, to my astonishment, heard her say that the eldest was seventeen years and the youngest two months. When I could find words to continue the conversation, I turned to the Manchu lady and asked her practically the same questions. She replied that she was thirty-five years old, was the mother of five children, the eldest being seventeen years and the youngest two months. Then I realized that the first wife had no children, but, according to Chinese custom, claimed as her own all children born to the secondary wives.
The custom was further exemplified by the wife of a magistrate who was calling upon me, accompanied by the second wife. After the usual questions in regard to age and health, I asked this lady how many children she possessed. She looked at me in a puzzled manner for a moment, then turned to the other wife and, keeping track of the names by turning down a finger at each count, said: “Let me see—how many children have I? Tsai-an has three, Wo-kee has five—that is eight; Ma-lu has two—ten; Sin Yun has four—fourteen; Sih-peh two—sixteen; and you have three”; then, turning to me, she said, “I have nineteen children.”
I have a Chinese friend who lived in Canton until he became involved in some political trouble that caused him to leave for Shanghai, where he would be under the protection of the foreign settlements. He left behind him his mother, four wives, and sixteen children. He became lonely in his exile, and asked his mother to send him a couple of his wives. She wrote him that they were busy attending to the education of their children, and that they did not speak the dialect in Shanghai and would feel like strangers; consequently it would be better for him to marry a couple of women native to the province, who would be more contented. He took her advice.
There is an American woman doctor in Shanghai who goes to the homes of the rich Chinese in the practice of her profession. I asked her one day if she knew the wife of Mr. Lu, a prominent merchant who had a most beautiful home on the smart drive in Shanghai. She replied that she knew a part of her—numbers one, four, seven, and eleven. A rich man is only restricted in the number of wives he may possess by his ability to support them. Gossip says—I do not know how true it is—that Yuan Shi-kai has the unlucky number of thirteen wives beneath the roof-tree of the President’s palace in Peking.
One would naturally suppose that endless complications of a disagreeable nature, leading to quarrels and bitterness, would arise, yet there does not seem to be more unhappiness in the average Chinese home than in those of any other country. The first wife, she who has been chosen by the parents, is the head of the household, and her word is law, the other wives practically occupying the position of servants. That is the theory, but in actual practice she who is fortunate enough to be the mother of sons, or perhaps the last girl-wife, is generally the favourite, and wields great influence over the master of the household. I said to a woman calling upon me one day that I should not feel so badly after the first wife was chosen to replace me, but that the choice of my immediate successor would make me very unhappy. She looked astonished, and said: “That depends entirely upon the woman. If she is agreeable and pleasant, it is a pleasure to have her in the family. Often a first wife chooses a second.”
We of the Western world look upon a great many wives as a luxury only to be enjoyed by the very rich. I have a friend who is very intimate in a Chinese family in which there are five wives. Since hearing her talk I have changed my mind in regard to the luxury of the plurality of wives. In this household the first wife lives with the husband’s family at their country place; the other four live with him. The husband supplies a cook for the common use of the family, and this cook provides rice, the staple article of food for the household. Each wife is given a servant and one pound a month with which to buy her luxuries, and once a year she is given a complete suit of silk or satin clothing, and if a favourite, I presume she receives jewels, etc., from her husband. A man told me that in the interior of China (Shanghai, Peking, and some of the larger cities are much more expensive) he could support easily his four wives and fourteen children on an income of £200 a year.
There are many foolish women who marry attachés of the Chinese embassies in England and America, or, more foolish still, who marry a Chinese merchant. They are, in fact, marrying the romance of the East represented to them in the person of the suave little almond-eyed man, and they pay bitterly for their mistake if they ever return to their husband’s country. They are recognized by neither Chinese nor foreigners, have no social standing in any community, and lead an existence that calls for pity.
There lived in Shanghai a man who had once been a secretary of the Legation in London. He had a great career ahead of him until he married an Englishwoman, when he was ordered home, degraded, and lived for years as the petty official in the office of the mayor of the city, at a wage scarcely liveable even for a Chinese. His wife, recognized by neither English nor Chinese, became addicted to opium and drink, and died after a few years of unhappiness. A woman doctor told me that she found the body lying in an outhouse, on a bundle of straw, waiting for burial, where finally it found a resting-place in a Chinese cemetery.
A few years ago a woman came to the English Consul in Nanking and asked for protection. She had married a Chinese merchant in London, and on his return to his own country he met with business reverses that reduced him practically to the position of a coolie. She had been forced to go into the paddy-fields transplanting rice. It is bad enough to see a Chinese woman standing in the mud and water to her knees, doing this back-breaking work, but it would be heartrending to see a woman of our race toiling alongside of the ignorant Chinese peasant, under the rays of the tropical sun, which beats down so pitilessly upon the exposed rice-fields. The Consul was extremely sorry for the woman, but could not interfere in the domestic life of a Chinese subject. When she found nothing could be done for her, she took the little round ball of sleep with which so many Chinese wives pass across the bridge of death—opium.