The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea

by Trumbull White

The lives of women in China, and especially of married women, are such as to justify the wish often expressed by them that in their next state of existence they may be born men. Even if in their baby days they escape the infanticidal tendencies of their parents, they are regarded as secondary considerations compared with their brothers. The philosophers from Confucius downward have all agreed in assigning them an inferior place to men. When the time comes for them to marry, custom requires them in nine cases out of ten, as we have seen, to take a leap in the dark, and that wife is fortunate who finds in her husband a congenial and faithful companion.

There is but one proper wife in the family, but there is no law against a man’s having secondary wives or concubines; and such connections are common enough wherever the means of a family are sufficient for their support. The concubine occupies in the family an inferior position to the wife, and her children, if she has any, belong by law to the wife.

There are seven legal grounds for divorcing a wife: disobedience to her husband’s parents; not giving birth to a son; Dissolute conduct; jealousy; talkativeness; thieving, and leprosy. These grounds however may be nullified by “the three considerations:” If her parents be dead; if she has passed with her husband through the years of mourning for his parents; and if he has become rich from being poor.

So many are the disabilities of married women, that many girls prefer going into nunneries or even committing suicide to trusting their future to men of whom they can know nothing but from the interested reports of the go-between.

The re-marriage of widows is regarded as an impropriety, and in wealthy families is seldom practiced. But among the poorer classes necessity often compels a widow to seek another bread winner. Some, however, having been unfortunate in their first matrimonial venture, refuse to listen to any proposal for a re-marriage, and like the young girls mentioned above seek escape by death from the importunities of relatives who desire to get them off their hands. A reverse view of matrimonial experiences is suggested by the practice of wives refusing to survive their husbands, and putting a voluntary end to their existence rather than live to mourn their loss. Such devotion is regarded by the people with great approbation and a deed of suicide is generally performed in public and with great punctiliousness.

The picture here given of married life in China has been necessarily darkly shaded, since it is, as a rule, only in its unfortunate phases, that it affords opportunity for remark. Without doubt there are many hundreds of thousands of families in China which are entirely happy. Happiness is after all a relative term, and Chinese women, knowing no higher status, are as a rule content to run the risk of wrongs which would be unendurable to an American woman, and to find happiness under conditions which are fortunately unknown in western countries.

The family tie in China is strong and the people are clannish. They seldom change their place of residence and most of them live where their ancestors have lived for many generations. One will frequently find the larger portion of a small village bearing the same name, in which case the village often takes its name from the family. Books on filial piety and the domestic relations recommend sons not to leave their parents when married, but to live together lovingly and harmoniously as one family. This theory is carried out in practice to some extent, in most instances. In the division of property some regard is had to primogeniture, but different sons share nearly equally. The eldest simply has a somewhat larger portion and certain household relics and valuables.

The position of woman is intermediate between that which she occupies in Christian and in other non-Christian countries. The manner in which they regard their lot may be inferred from the fact related on a previous page, that the most earnest desire and prayer in worshipping in Buddhist temples is, generally, that they may be men in the next state of existence. In many families girls have no individual names, but are simply called No. One, Two, Three, Four, etc. When married they are Mr. So-and-so’s wife, and when they have sons they are such-and-such a boy’s mother. They live in a great measure secluded, take no part in general society, and are expected to retire when a stranger or an acquaintance of the opposite sex enters the house. The claim of one’s parents and brothers upon his affections is considered to be paramount to that of his wife. A reason given for this doctrine in a celebrated Chinese work is that the loss of a brother is irreparable but that of a wife is not. Women are treated with more respect and consideration as they advance in years; mothers are regarded with great affection and tenderness, and grandmothers are sometimes almost worshipped. It must be further said that the Chinese have found the theory of inferiority of women a very difficult one to carry out in practice. There are many families in which the superiority of her will and authority is sufficiently manifest, even though not cheerfully acknowledged.

The rules and conventionalities which regulate social life are exceedingly minute and formal. Politeness is a science, and gracefulness of manners a study and discipline. The people are hospitable and generous to a fault, their desire to appear well in these respects often leading them to expenditures entirely disproportionate to their means.

When under the influence of passion, quarrels arise, the women resort to abuse in violent language, extreme in proportion to the length of time during which the feelings which prompted them have been restrained. Men bluster and threaten in a manner quite frightful to those unaccustomed to it, but seldom come to blows. In cases of deep resentment the injured party often adopts a mode of revenge which is very characteristic. Instead of killing the object of his hate, he kills himself on the doorstep of his enemy, thereby casting obloquy and the stigma of murder on the adversary.