Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

by Mrs. Archibald Little

It will be observed that several years had been allowed to elapse before these thirty-four women received official honour. Yet is it not the case that in most other countries they would have remained unnoticed to all time? The wording is also noteworthy: "a posthumous testimonial of merit commemorative of their action" is to be prepared. "Thus will their pure souls be set at rest, and others be encouraged to follow in their footsteps."

It is the custom of most men to write of the mock modesty of the women of China. They may have very good reasons for doing so of which I know nothing. With regard to women, as with regard to everything else in China, I can but write of them as I have found them. To establish the truth of any fact or any series of facts needs an amount of research and study I have not been able to give; nor does this book aim at being a storehouse of learning and a book of reference for all time, but rather at giving a picture, for those who know nothing of them, of a people among whom I have at least lived on somewhat intimate terms for the last eleven years. At the same time, in writing about Chinese women I am burdened by the reflection that possibly I am in some ways better able to express an opinion about the men, and men about the women. To tell what I can, however: doubtless Chinese ladies' speak of many subjects with the freedom of the days of Queen Elizabeth; but how women can be called mock modest who always remain fully clad in such damp heat as leads men to strip to the waist in all their shops, as also at their dinner parties, when summer is at its height, I cannot understand. The amount of suffering from heat that must be undergone by women in consequence of their observance of decorum seems not at all to have been sufficiently appreciated. I have never yet seen a Chinese woman insufficiently clad, nor committing any act that could possibly be considered indecent. The whole behaviour of Chinese ladies would lead me to suppose that they would shrink from anything of the kind. It is not in accordance with their etiquette that they should talk to men—not their own relations; yet whenever I have seen them brought into intercourse with foreign men, or even Chinese men, on matters of business, I have been struck by both their ease of manner and their quiet dignity. It is true they are rather given to rising to address a man, as if he were a superior being; but, further than that, they in nowise convey the impression that they are accustomed to consider themselves as at the service or pleasure of men. It must be understood I am here simply writing of the ladies, with whom I have held friendly intercourse, not of poor peasant-women, nor of those whose society European men in treaty ports most frequent. Although for these last I must add that, however immodest their conduct may be, their manners and behaviour have none of that repulsive disregard of decency, that makes it to a woman so painful to hold intercourse with those acting in a similar manner in London, New York, or, worse still, Paris. It is not unnatural that this should be so. The women leading a vicious life in China have for the most part been sold into slavery in their childhood, their families not having enough rice to feed them; and it is from no bad inclinations of their own that they are found in the houses where foreign or Chinese men find them. Doubtless there are in China, as in other countries, women who prefer vice to virtue; but if I am any judge of expressions or manners, these last must be rarer in China than in any other country with which I am acquainted.

At a ladies' dinner party, the conversation turning upon a new Governor, who had just arrived with several concubines, I found all the ladies at table expressing a horror at the idea of being, or letting any one of their relations become, the number two of any man; whilst my hostess explained to me that concubines were, as a rule, women of lower birth, or sprung from families fallen into indigence. But what struck me most was that there was no tittering, nor appearance of innuendo, whilst discussing the subject, which simply came forward, because none of the ladies saw how they could interchange visits with the ladies of the new Governor; and they also thought an official of such habits of life was not likely to administer the district well. The coarseness and directness of Chinese women often shock European ladies very much. But whilst glad that we have ourselves so far improved in this respect, I have never felt sure that the fine ladies of Queen Elizabeth's time were not more modest really than the fine ladies of Queen Victoria's.

It is certainly true that all we European ladies who go up-country in China have to alter our wardrobes very considerably, if we mean to be on friendly terms with Chinese ladies; whilst the wife of a French Consul had to replace in its case an old master she had brought out to China, such an outrage upon decency was it considered. The German wife of a Commissioner of Customs, regardless of its effects upon her husband's official visitors, amused herself by decorating her hall with life-size pictures of nude female figures. She was rewarded by her man-servant always pointing them out to visitors, when she was out, as the pictures of herself and her various friends. Without entering upon the vexed question as to the decency of the undraped, it can be imagined that no pictures of the kind exist in a country where no woman ever bares any part of her person in society. And far from this indicating mock modesty, it appears to me the natural outcome of a classic literature, every passage of which might be put into the hands of the traditional young girl. When it is further considered that, unlike the images of the two adjacent countries of India and Tibet, the images of China are quite untainted by any suggestion of impropriety, I think I have some grounds for saying that, at all events, virtue is sufficiently in the ascendant in China for vice to pay it the compliment of hypocrisy, if no more. And has any nation yet got farther than this?

It is, of course, well known that as a Chinaman gets richer he buys more concubines. These do not take rank as his wife, and the whole proceeding is considered rather as a concession to weakness than as a practice to be admired. He is, however, careful to get them from as respectable families as he can. A Chinaman also takes a concubine into his house for life; he has no idea of enjoying the few fleeting years of her youth and prettiness, and then setting her adrift with a little sum of money. She becomes from the moment she enters his household as much a charge to him as his wife is, and her children are just as much his lawful children as his wife's are. At the same time, concessions to weakness are said to open the floodgates to yet greater evils; and it may be so in China.

At a dinner party I was asking after the pretty, bright little daughter of my host, who in company with another pretty doll of a girl and an infant prodigy of a younger brother had paid me a visit the year before, when a lady beside me, putting up a warning hand across her lips, just after the fashion of a regular fine lady of Europe, spoke in easy accents from behind it: "Best ask no questions. They are by another woman. His wife has but this one daughter that you see." The speech and the manner of it seemed to give me a new insight into Chinese life. The year before the other woman had been living in his house, his wife had herself brought the infant prodigy often to see me. The little girls had come more than once. Now a time of financial crisis had passed over the city, he had established his number two with her children in a little shop near by, and the subject was not to be mentioned in the hearing of his wife and daughter. Further inquiry revealed that he had done a thing outrageous, not to be spoken of except in a whisper. Under stress of poverty he had sent another concubine into a convent to be a nun. This was atrocious, for by all Chinese rules she was a member of his family, for whom he was bound to provide for the rest of her days.

What is the position of women when they are married? It is so hard to describe this in any country. And the difficulty is increased in China, because we are so prone to connect the idea of marriage with love and love-making. There is nominally none in China, where as a rule the young man does not see his bride until she is his wife. She then becomes the household drudge, wears poor clothing in comparison with the daughters of the house, and is the servant of her mother-in-law. Often and often have I wished that it was not so, and that in going to a house I could talk with the wistful young daughters-in-law, who glance at me from under their eyelids, and look as if they would be so receptive of new ideas, being, like most ill-used people, quite ready for a revolt of some sort. But it is the elder lady who does the honours, entertains the guests, and regulates the household. And who more set in her ideas than a grandmother of many grandchildren?

A COUNTRY HOUSE PARTY.
By Mrs. Archibald Little.