The Status of Woman, according to the Chinese Classics:—
In a periodical published in Shanghai, Dr. Faber, a well-known scholar, writes (1891) a paper on the status of women in China. He refers especially to the theoretical position assigned to women by the Chinese Classics. These lay down the different dogmas on the subject:
“1.—Women are as different in nature from man as earth is from heaven.
“2.—Dualism, not only in body form, but in the very essence of nature, is indicated and proclaimed by Chinese moralists of all times and creed. The male belongs to yang, the female to yin.
“3.—Death and all other evils have their origin in the yin, or female principle; life and prosperity come from its subjection to the yang or male principle; and it is therefore regarded as a law of nature that women should be kept under the control of men, and not be allowed any will of their own.
“4.—Women, indeed, are human beings, (!) but they are of a lower state than men, and can never attain to full equality with them.
“5.—The aim of female education, therefore, is perfect submission, not cultivation and development of mind.
“6.—Women cannot have any happiness of their own; they have to live and work for men.
“7.—Only as the mother of a son, as the continuator of the direct line of a family, can a woman escape from her degradation and become to a certain degree her husband’s equal; but then only in household affairs, especially the female department, and in the ancestral hall.
“8.—In the other world, woman’s condition remains exactly the same, for the same laws of existence apply. She is not the equal of her husband; she belongs to him, and is dependent for her happiness on the sacrifice offered by her descendants.