BURMESE MOTHER AND CHILD. Page 94.
The marriage yoke rests as easily upon the Burmese necks as a wreath of roses—for the man and wife pull equally, pull together. Each does his or her fair part. Each remembers always the rights of the other. Courtesy and justice are big ingredients in Burmese married life. Small wonder that in Burmah marriage is a big success.
If the position of the Burmese women is unique, the position of the Burmese children is unparalleled and almost indescribable. Filial piety is almost as much a matter of religion in Burmah as in China. On the other hand, parental coercion is more unknown in Burmah than in the United States. Burmese children never disobey, but Burmese parents almost never command; family affection is very strong in Burmah. But the law of love is the only law known in the home circle. When a girl reaches a marriageable age—when she has reached young-womanhood and feels inclined for the greater womanhood of marriage—she very simply places a light in her own particular casement; then the would-be Benedicts gather about her. Night after night they “call.” Night after night she and her parents receive them. The Burmese women are always most careful in their toilets; but at this period their care becomes superlative. The Burmese women are always pretty; their taste in dress is exquisite; and when a Burmese maiden lights the invitational lamp and sits down to await her suitors, she makes a picture of pretty humanity, of which we women of Europe may well be envious.
“Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.” I wonder if that is true. It is musical, it is big with poetry. It pointed a great truth as Tennyson wrote it. It fell from his pen a truth. But take it alone, tear it from its high place in English literature; of itself, by itself, is it true? I have doubts, petty perhaps, but forcibly pertinacious. The marriage question—that El Dorado of the farthing-a-liners—Ah! there is no marriage question in Cathay. The women of the East are married, and they find their happiness in marriage—they never analyse it. They know as little of elective affinities and of natural selection as do the perfumed flowers of the Orient. Perhaps they know as much. It is a very fine thing to discuss marriage in all its imperfections, it is far finer to experience it in all its perfection. And the women of the Orient, who never talk of marriage because they are not enough advanced, experience it and seem to find it rather perfect. What has the world given women, what has civilisation, education, given them; what can life give them better than marriage? Nothing! The past gave us nothing, the present gives us nothing, and in the mysterious bosom of the future lies for us no greater benison than marriage. Sneer senseless men and unsexed women, but that is truth, Nature’s greatest truth!
BURMESE MUSICIANS. Page 97.
The Burmese maiden who desires marriage, and tells it through her pretty lamp, is not over bold, nor does she seem so to her countrymen. The Burmese regard marriage as so much a woman’s greatest right—they so entirely believe it to be her highest and best career—that the girl who announces her readiness for marriage is neither ashamed nor shamed. Let us look at her for a moment as she sits quietly within her father’s doorway. Her lamp is lit. The suitors are coming. Yes, she is vastly pretty. Her long black hair is quaintly, carefully, but not grotesquely dressed; it is softly perfumed, and fresh, dewy flowers rest amid its silken coils. Every feature is pretty, but prettiest are her dainty ears and her small hands and feet. In her ears gleam twin pearls and rubies, and her little hands are heavy with the same gems. The people of the East are peculiarly fond of pearls. The fondness culminates in China. The pearls of the world are worn by the beauties of Canton and Pekin. The Burmese have all the fine tastes of the Chinese, and none of their personal ugliness. The women of Burmah wear pearls less profusely than do the women of China, but they become them more. Mah Me wears a petticoat, a graceful silken petticoat. It has been woven in a Burmese loom. The colours are bright and varied, but they are matchlessly blended, and the pattern is as exquisite as it is Oriental. An outer skirt (indeed it is a straight piece of soft silk) falls above the petticoat. It is a soft, bright pink, it is striped with dull, dark colours, and with gold and silver threads. It falls behind Mah Me in a pretty demi-train way. Under her arms is folded a broad band of red silk; it forms a pretty, simple, bodice and keeps in place the pretty, simple skirts. A sheer muslin jacket covers her shoulders and her upper arms. It is open from her bosom. She half wears, half carries, a blue and silver shawl. Her soft brown neck is modestly covered by chains of purest gold, in which glitter the gems of Burmah—gems dug from the invaluable mines for which we are so eagerly looking.