To understand the first clause, it will be necessary to remember that the adumbra is a kind of fig-tree, and the natives assert that no mortal has ever seen it in bloom.
Infanticide was at one time common in Ceylon, and all female children, except the first-born, were liable to be sacrificed, especially if born under a malignant planet; but latterly the British government have denounced the crime as murder, and punished it accordingly. This has had the effect of gradually abolishing it, and the population has increased in consequence.
The social condition of the Singhalese women is not so degraded as in other parts of the East, but their moral character does not correspond. Profligacy is prevalent. Open and acknowledged prostitution is rare, excepting in the sea-port towns, and of its extent there we have no reliable particulars. Under the Kandian dynasty a common harlot had her hair and ears cut off, and was publicly whipped in a state of nudity.
ULTRA GANGETIC NATIONS.
In this division we include the immense tract lying between Hindostan and China. Although these countries present some variety of customs and degrees of progress, yet, generally speaking, their manners are uniform. In all, the condition of women is extremely low. They are held in contempt, are taught to abase themselves in their own minds, and employ their license by degrading themselves still farther. The effect of Asiatic despotism is plainly visible: every man is the king’s serf, and the support of the community devolves upon the women, who, in Cochin China especially, plow, sow, reap, fell trees, build, and perform all the other offices civilization assigns to the stronger sex.
The marriage contract is a mere bargain. A man buys his wife, and may extend his purchases as far as he pleases, the first bought being usually the chief. A simple agreement before witnesses seals the union, which can be dissolved with equal facility, the only requisite in Cochin China being to break a chopstick or porcupine quill in presence of a third person. A man has also the privilege of selling his inferior wives.
The unmarried women are almost universally unchaste, and do not incur infamy or lose the chance of marriage by prostituting themselves. Custom allows a father to yield his daughter to any visitor he may wish to honor, or to hire her for a stipulated price to any one desirous of her company, and she has no power to resist the arrangement, although she can not be married against her will.
A wife is considered sacred, more as the property of her husband than from respect to her chastity. The theory of the law is, that a man’s harem can not be invaded, even by the king himself; but Asiatic absolutism was never famed for its adherence to law when personal interest was in the other scale, and there is but little exception in this case.
Adultery is punished in Siam by fine, and in Cochin China by death. In Burmah executions of females are very rare, but they are disciplined with the aid of the bamboo, husbands sometimes flogging their wives in the open streets.
Although professed prostitutes exist in large numbers throughout the region, still there are not so many as might be expected, because no single woman is required to be chaste. Little is known of their habits, peculiarities, or position, except that in Siam they are incapacitated from giving evidence before a justice. This restriction does not seem to arise from a consideration of their immorality, but from local prejudices, and the disability under which they labor is also extended to braziers and blacksmiths.