CHINA. In this, and almost all the countries of Southern Asia, the condition of women is truly deplorable. Forced marriages and sales are universal, and the Chinese are so excessively jealous, that they do not permit their wives to receive any visitors of the other sex, and transport them from place to place in vehicles secured by iron bars. Their concubines are not only treated with the most degrading inhumanity, but are slaves to the wives, who never fail to sway a despotic sceptre; they are besides liable at any time to be sold. The children of concubines are regarded as the offspring of the legitimate wife; hence they manifest no affection for their real mothers, but often treat them with the most marked disrespect. The laws of China and Siam allow the lawful wives and sons, after the death of their husbands and fathers, to exclude concubines and their children from all share in the property of the deceased, and to dispose of their persons by public or private sale.
The wives of people of rank are always confined to their apartments from motives of jealousy; those of a middle class are a kind of upper servants deprived of liberty; and the wives of the lower orders are mere domestic drudges. The handsomest women are usually purchased for the courts and principal mandarins.
"We can readily," says a respectable writer, "give credit to the custom of a landlord taking the wife of a ryat or peasant, as a pledge for rent, and keeping her till the debt is discharged (in the kingdom of Nepaul;) since we know, on the best authority, that their wise polished neighbours, the Chinese, have found it necessary to enact a prohibitory statute against lending wives and daughters on hire." [[65]]
Another writer observes, "Since the philosophical inquiry into the condition of the weaker sex, in the different stages of society, published by Millar, [[66]] it has been universally considered as an infallible criterion of barbarous society, to find the women in a state of great degradation. Scarcely among savages themselves is the condition of women more wretched and humiliating than among the Chinese. A very striking picture of the slavery and oppression to which they are doomed, but too long for insertion in this place, is drawn by M. Vanbraam. [[67]] Mr. Barrow informs us, that among the rich, the women are imprisoned slaves; among the poor, drudges; 'many being,' says he, 'compelled to work with an infant upon the back, while the husband, in all probability, is gaming,--I have frequently seen women,' he adds, 'assisting to drag a sort of light plough, and the harrow. The easier task, that of directing the machine, is left to the husband.' [[68]] The Chinese value their daughters so little, that when they have more children than they can easily maintain, they hire the midwives to stifle the females in a basin of water as soon as they are born.' [[69]] Nothing can exceed the contempt towards women which the maxims of the most celebrated of their lawgivers express. 'It is very difficult,' said Confucius himself, 'to govern women and servants; for if you treat them with gentleness and familiarity, they lose all respect; if with rigour, you will have continual disturbance.'
"Women are debarred almost entirely from the rights of property; and they never inherit. Among the worst savage nations, their daughters are sold to their husbands, and are received and treated as slaves. [[70]] When society has made a little progress, the purchase-money is received only as a present, and the wife, nominally at least, is not received as a slave. Among the Chinese, the daughter, with whom no dowry is given, it uniformly exchanged for a present; and so little is the transaction, even on a purchase, disguised, that Mr. Barrow has no scruple to say, 'the daughters may be said to be invariably sold.' [[71]] He assures us, that 'it is even a common practice among the Chinese to sell their daughters, that they may he brought up as prostitutes.'" [[72]] [[73]]
BIRMAN EMPIRE. This extensive dominion comprehends the state of Pegu, Ava, Arracan, and Siam. Women are not secluded from the society of men, but they are held in great contempt. Their evidence is undervalued in judicial proceedings. The lower classes sell their women to strangers, who do not, however, seem to feel themselves degraded. In Pegu, Siam, Cochin China, and other districts, adultery is regarded as honourable. Herodotus mentions a people called Gendanes, where the debasement of the female character is such, that their misconduct is an occasion of boasting and a source of distinction.
HINDOOSTAN. The following extracts, from the letters of the Baptist missionaries, in India, will speak volumes, and might, if it were necessary, be corroborated by a thousand similar citations.
At an early period of the Baptist mission to India, Dr. Carey communicated the following interesting account to a friend:--"As the burning of women with their husbands is one of the most singular and striking customs of this people, and also very ancient, as you will see by the Reek Bede, which contains a law relating to it, I shall begin with this. Having just read a Shanscrit book, called Soordhee Sungraha, which is a collection of laws from the various Shasters, arranged under their proper heads, I shall give you an extract from it, omitting some sentences, which are mere verbal repetitions. Otherwise, the translation may be depended on as exact. The words prefixed to some of the sentences are the names of the original books from which the extracts are made.
"Angeera. After the husband's death, the virtuous wife who burns herself with him, [[74]] is like an Asoondhatee, [[75]] and will go to bliss.--If she be within one day's journey of the place where he dies, and indeed virtuous, the burning of his corpse shall be deferred one day for her arrival.
"Brahma Pooran. If the husband die in another country, the virtuous wife shall take any of his effects; for instance, a sandal, and binding it on her thigh, shall enter the fire with it. [[76]]