THE WOMEN'S QUESTION
The desire for radical change is never so much to be dreaded as when it attacks the home life of a nation. That quiet life so often hidden away because of its very sacredness by the Eastern races is like everything else in China disturbed by the introduction of Western civilisation, and in no other part of human life will its two different sides be more apparent. Western civilisation without Christianity will destroy the home life as it destroys most Eastern things it touches, and will do little to construct a new life to take the place of the one it destroys. The Japanese complain that Western civilisation has destroyed both the modesty and the religion of their women, and Christianity has not yet been able to any great extent to reconstruct on the basis of true religion new ideals of feminine life. Therefore the Chinese, with all their enthusiasm for Western culture, are looking a little nervously at what they see has happened in Japan. They say that their home life is not now unbeautiful; even those who are disposed to admit that the life of the Western woman is founded on higher ideals than their own will not allow that their national home life deserves unmixed condemnation. Everybody agrees that the wanton destruction of the laws which govern women's life in China may have a terrible result when Western civilisation is unwisely introduced, especially if it is made to appear to be a civilisation without religion. The missionaries see in this crisis the necessity for vigorous action; while thankful for the movement, they realise the responsibility it puts upon Christians to see that that movement is wisely directed. In the memorial from the Centenary Conference at Shanghai in 1907 to the Home Churches, they say:—
"The changed attitude of China towards female education and the place of woman, lays upon us great responsibilities. The uplifting of woman is a first need in the moral regeneration of a people, and one of the things in which Christianity has a totally different ideal from that which the religions of China have encouraged. The present change of national sentiment on the subject is one of the indirect but none the less striking changes that the slow but steady dissemination of Christian ideas in China during the past century has led to. Let it be remembered, however, that it requires the Christian motive power to make it successful and fruitful."
It is somewhat difficult to obtain information from the Chinese themselves as to the position of women. They are very averse to discussing the subject; in fact, it is not even regarded as good manners for a man to ask after the health of his most intimate friend's wife; and all the information that we could get had for the most part to be obtained by Lady Florence Cecil through feminine sources. We may generally state, however, that the position of women in China is neither so low as that which they occupy in India or among the Mohammedans, neither is it in any degree so high as the position of women in Western lands. The woman is completely subject to the man; till she marries she is subject to her father, when she is married she is subject to her husband, and if her husband dies she is then subject to her son, and rarely re-marries. These are called the three obediences. She is not educated as a rule, because both public opinion and Chinese philosophy regard her as mentally far inferior to the man. We shall explain later on how in Chinese thought everything is divided into a good and an evil principle—a Yang and a Yin. The woman is distinctly Yin. She is therefore necessary to man, but at the same time inferior.
Again, with regard to the question of polygamy, her position is an intermediate one between the avowed polygamy of Moslem countries and the ill-maintained monogamy of many a Latin country. In Hong-Kong the position was explained by a Chinaman to me thus: that when a woman grew old it was regarded as her duty to provide a secondary wife for her husband's pleasure and as a companion for herself—a companion with a sense of servitude in it. If this was done in an orderly manner, it was absolutely approved by Chinese public opinion. If, on the other hand, the husband, ignoring the wife's rights, should choose a secondary wife for himself and set her up in another house, his attitude would be regarded as distinctly doubtful by the respectable Chinese. In the same way if an official were appointed to a distant post he would probably not think of imposing upon his wife with her deformed feet the pain and discomfort of a long journey; he would most likely take a natural-footed woman, who will be for that reason a slave; in fact, one gentleman went so far as to say that he thought that the squeezed feet had a great deal to do with this institution of a secondary wife, because he noted that the secondary wives of all the officials when they were travelling were natural-footed women.
The secondary wife would be rarely a woman of good class; it is allowed to be an inferior position. On the other hand, if she bears her husband a son, and that son is recognised, all that son's relations, and therefore all his mother's relations, become relations of the father.
The curious tangle which such a position begets when brought into contact with the Christian idea is exemplified in this story. A rich Chinaman had three wives. By his lawful wife he had nine children; by the other two he had none; but his second wife was a woman of very strong character, and she was brought in touch with the missionaries by the Chinese wife of a European. She apparently ruled the house with a kindly rule to which all the others bowed. She did everything in an energetic and vigorous way, and she studied Christianity till she was convinced of its truth, and then she demanded baptism. There was a great difficulty; she must leave her husband before she could be baptized. After considerable delay she accepted the condition, but resistance came, not alone from the man, but from the other two wives. They could not possibly get on without her; they were like sisters; and she must be allowed to return to the house. She refused, though the pressure was extreme. The man said that he had promised his ancestors that none of his children should be Christians, and that his own mother would not forgive him; but the woman held firm, and at last she was baptized. Her face was beautiful to behold while she was accepting Christianity and renouncing all that made life sweet to her. The husband was so moved by her fortitude that he signed a paper promising not to molest her, and yet to support her apart, so that she should not be in any need.
At the Shanghai Conference there were, curious to relate, many women who wished the Christian body to recognise existing polygamy among the Chinese. A sentence of the resolution proposed was that "secondary wives may be admitted to membership if obviously true Christians." Mr. Arnold Foster resisted the inclusion of these words, and they were lost. No doubt the Conference was wise in taking this line. It is most essential to maintain the purity of the home life, and the difficulty that arises from secondary wives desiring to join the Christian Church can never be a very important one, as the vast majority of Chinese are monogamous.
A serious evil this custom creates is that of female slavery. Both in Japan and China one of the awful penalties of poverty is that a man is sometimes forced to sell his female children. These little girls are bought by prudent Chinamen, first to be servants to their own wives and then to act as secondary wives to their sons to prevent them going elsewhere. Sometimes they are kidnapped by men who make a regular business of this cruel traffic. Stories are told of boat-loads of these children being brought down the Yangtsze, concealed below the deck and terrorised to keep them quiet by one of their number being killed before their eyes. On one occasion a missionary suddenly saw a hand thrust through the planks of the deck, and on investigation he discovered a dozen children hidden below, and as it turned out they had been kidnapped, not bought, he was able to get them released. These slaves are the absolute property of their owners, and many are the tales told of the cruel and neglectful treatment to which they are subjected. In Shanghai the Chinese police will report such cases, and in consequence the ladies of the settlement have founded an admirable institution to which they can be brought. The Slave Refuge deserves all support. There the little girls are taught and cared for, and helped to forget the terrible experiences some of them have gone through. Sad to relate, many of them have to be taken first to the hospital to be cured from the effects of the ill-treatment they have received. One poor little thing went into convulsions when a fire was lit in the ward; it was difficult to understand the reason, but when it happened again and the poor child uttered incoherent appeals for mercy, it was discovered that she thought the fire was lit to heat opium needles with which to torture her. Her system was too shattered for recovery, but many others get quite well and form a pleasing sight at work and play in the bright cheerful Refuge, with the happy elasticity of youth forgetting the injuries which in some cases have left on them permanent scars. But I fear the system of slavery continues very commonly all over China, and such a philanthropic effort as the Shanghai Slave Refuge can touch but a very small proportion of them. Probably when the little slaves are destined to be wives to their mistresses' sons they are treated less cruelly, and though employed as household drudges, do not live actively unhappy lives.
Without stating that women as a whole are miserable, I think it would be no exaggeration to say that they are infinitely less happy than their Western sisters. Many of the national customs militate against their happiness. The custom of child betrothal, for instance, condemns a woman to live completely subject to a man for whom she perhaps has the greatest natural antipathy. Stories are told of brides committing suicide rather than leave their father's house to be married to men for whom they feel no affection; yet as a whole they accept their position, and a Chinese woman has neither the will nor the power to be untrue to her husband.