The grounds for divorce as stated by Confucius are:
"(1) Disobedience to her husband's parents;
"(2) Not giving birth to a son;
"(3) Dissolute conduct;
"(4) Jealousy of her husband's attentions (to the other inmates of his harem);
"(5) Talkativeness, and
"(6) Thieving."
A Chinese bride owes implicit obedience to her mother-in-law, and as she is often reared by her husband's family, or else married to him as a mere child, and is under the complete control of his mother for a considerable period of her existence, her life in many instances is one of intolerable misery. There is generally little or no consideration for a girl under the best of circumstances until she becomes the mother of a male child; her condition then improves but she approaches happiness only when she in turn occupies the enviable position of mother-in-law.
It is difficult to imagine a life of greater dreariness and vacuity than that of the average Chinese woman. Owing to her bound feet and resultant helplessness, if she is not obliged to work she rarely stirs from the narrow confinement of her courtyard, and perhaps in her entire life she may not go a mile from the house to which she was brought a bride, except for the periodical visits to her father's home.
It has been aptly said that there are no real homes in China and it is not surprising that, ignored and despised for centuries, the Chinese woman shows no ability to improve the squalor of her surroundings. She passes her life in a dark, smoke-filled dwelling with broken furniture and a mud floor, together with pigs, chickens and babies enjoying a limited sphere of action under the tables and chairs, or in the tumble-down courtyard without. Her work is actually never done and a Chinese bride, bright and attractive at twenty, will be old and faded at thirty.