My Chinese Marriage

by Mae M. Franking; Katherine Anne Porter

While Madame Liang patted the baby, talking to her coaxingly, I asked what she wished me to do.

She indicated on her dressing-table a box of stereoscopic views, which I brought to her. They formed a complete story, but had become very much confused. As I could read the foreign titles, would I kindly arrange the pictures in proper sequence? The ease and speed with which I accomplished this task won her instant approbation.

This was merely one of the numberless small things I did for her thereafter. In my new estate I was in attendance on my mother during many hours of the day. I walked with her in the garden in fine weather, I sat with her and sewed, threading needles as for my own mother and even helping her to make those marvellous small shoes that she fashioned so carefully to the form of her feet. One day I told her how amazed I had been when I first learned from Chan-King that Chinese wives made the family shoes, but how readily I could understand, when I saw the dainty embroidered foot-wear he referred to, that shoemaking was indeed a womanly craft.

She and Madame Chau used to take great pride in making for themselves the most frivolous of shoes. Madame Chau's were the smaller, being barely two and a half inches long, whereas those of my mother were twice that length and different in shape. I discovered the reason for this: Madame Chau clung tenaciously to the old style; but Mother had gradually let out her bandages and altered their arrangement, keeping pace with the change that followed the abolition of the old custom.

I became deeply interested in the custom of foot-binding. In Shanghai, all the pupils of my school and (with certain notable exceptions) the women of my social world had natural feet, and the majority of them wore American pumps and Oxfords or English boots. Bound feet, though I saw them frequently in public, seemed very remote. But now, save the girls of twelve and under, who had profited by the new order of things, the women among whom I lived all had bound feet. It may be worth noting, when one remembers how America, with its own great unwashed, jokes at the expense of the Chinese of whatever rank or station, that, in accordance with the fastidious cleanliness of upper-class Chinese, the bound feet were exquisitely cared for, and the narrow, white, specially woven bandages were changed every two or three days. As I watched the daintily shod women of my mother's household, I realized that never before had I appreciated, in reading the literature of my adopted country, the aptness of comparing the walk of a woman with bound feet to the grace of bamboo swaying in the breeze. Never had I suspected the charm attached to twinkling flashes of embroidery beneath a panelled, many-plaited skirt. My own number-four feet assumed alarming proportions. I grew positively ashamed of them. One day as Mother and I sat together in arm-chairs, with a blackwood tea-table between us, I placed my feet in line with hers and said, sighing, "Ah, they look very bad, indeed!" She waved a deprecating hand. "Never mind," she said with courtesy and truth, "they may not look so well, but they certainly walk better."

Of course I was glad that the small Alicia belonged to Young China, and would purchase no golden lilies with a cask of tears, as I had often read that every woman with bound feet must do. But I now decided that the cask must have been filled in the years of girlhood. For the women about me seemed to suffer no pain—only an occasional numbness, relieved by brisk massage from knee to ankle under the hands of a maid. I was surprised at the ease and energy with which they got about, merely balancing with small forward and backward steps when stopping—unless they had a servant's arm, or a cane, for support.

I thought our mother infinitely superior in the grace and dignity of her carriage. Madame Springtime, who had slightly enlarged her feet, at the command of her husband, moved slowly and with a lack of grace characteristic of the younger generation. Madame Chang moved ponderously and with difficulty. Madame Chau hurried with quick, fluttering steps. On occasion she would even run races with Alfred, our merry second son, now two and a half years old. She would catch his hand, lean forward and hurry him the length of the hall, the two of them laughing gaily. Now and then I would fold my hands, balance on my heels and essay a "willow walk," to the great amusement of Mother and Madame Chau.

Life went on very evenly for me in my Chinese mother's house after my husband's departure. His father had not come home for his semi-annual visit, and the second son was away again. Even the quiet-mannered third son, who looked just like his mother, and who used to bring me roses from the garden every day, had sailed for the island port to take his place in the family business. We were under a benevolent matriarchate in the snug compound among the brown hills now brightening to springtime green.

Madame Liang was infallibly generous and kind. I never heard her speak sharply except occasionally to servants who had by their carelessness caused something to go amiss, impeding the smooth progress of daily family life. I used to watch her with interest as she directed the household affairs from the throne of her great bed. She rarely gave her orders at first hand, but would summon a relative or an upper servant, who would receive and pass them down to those for whom they were intended. This imparted to her orders an empress-like finality and importance. The servants gave her complete allegiance.