Polygamy is allowed under certain restrictions. The first wife is usually chosen from a family equal in station to that of the husband, and acquires all the rights and privileges which belong to a chief wife in any Asiatic country. The man may then take as many more women as he can afford to keep, but these are inferior in rank to the first married, although the children have a contingent claim to the inheritance. This position, if it brings no positive honor, brings little shame. It is sanctioned by usage, but was originally condemned by strict moralists, who designated the arrangement by a word compounded of crime and woman. It is a position which only a poor or humble woman will consent to occupy. A national proverb says, “It is more honorable to be the wife of a poor man than the concubine of an emperor.” The social rule which makes all subsequent wives subordinate to the one first married may probably have had some effect in forming this opinion.
The Chinese system is rigid as to the degrees of consanguinity between which marriage may be contracted. In ancient times the reverse of this seems to have been the rule, and tradition says that much immorality was the result. The law now prohibits all unions between persons of the same family name, and is attended with some inconvenience, because the number of proper names is small. If such a marriage is contracted, it is declared void, and the parties are punished by blows and a fine. If the couple are previously related by marriage within four degrees, the union is declared incestuous, and the offenders are punished with the bamboo, or, in extreme cases, by strangling or decapitation.
Not only are the degrees of relationship definitely specified, but the union of classes is under restriction. An officer of government must not marry into a family under his jurisdiction, or, if he does, is subject to a heavy punishment; the same being accorded to the girl’s relations if they have voluntarily aided him, but they are exempt if their submission was the result of his authority. To marry a woman absconding from justice is prohibited. To forcibly wed a freeman’s daughter subjects the offender to strangulation. An officer of government, or any hereditary functionary, who marries a woman of a disreputable class, receives sixty strokes of the bamboo, and the same modicum awaits any priest who marries at all, he being also expelled from his order. Slaves and free persons are forbidden to intermarry. Those who connive at an illegal union are considered criminals, and punished accordingly.
According to Chinese law, any one of seven specified causes are allowed to justify divorce, namely, barrenness, lasciviousness, disregard of the husband’s parents, talkativeness (!), thievish propensities, an envious, suspicious temper, or inveterate infirmity. Against these the woman has three pleas, any one of which, if substantiated, will annul the husband’s application. They are, that she has mourned three years for her husband’s family; that the family has become rich, having been poor at the time of marriage; or, that she has no father or mother living to receive her. These are useless when she has committed adultery, in which case her husband is positively forbidden to retain her, but under other circumstances they present a check to his caprice. In cases of adultery, a man may kill both his wife and her paramour if he detect them and execute his vengeance forthwith, but he must not put her to death for any other crime. In the same connection may be mentioned a law denouncing severe penalties on any man who lends his wife or daughter. This is not an obsolete enactment against an unknown offense, for instances do sometimes occur of poor men selling their wives as concubines to their richer neighbors, while others prostitute them for gain.
From this view of the social condition of women and the laws of marriage, it is necessary to pass to a subject which has given China an unenviable notoriety, namely, the custom of infanticide. Two causes appear to have encouraged this practice: the poverty of the lower classes, and the severity of the laws respecting illicit sexual intercourse. The former is the principal cause. When the parents are so indigent as to have no hope of maintaining their children, the daughters are murdered, for a son can earn his living in a few years, and assist his parents in addition. Among this class the birth of a female is viewed as a calamity. Several methods are adopted to destroy the child. It may be drowned in warm water, its throat may be pinched, a wet cloth may be pressed over its mouth, it may be choked with rice, or it may be buried alive.
When Mr. Smith, a missionary, was in the suburbs of Canton in 1844, he made many inquiries as to the extent of infanticide. A native assured him that, within a circle of ten miles’ radius, the children killed each year would not exceed five hundred. In Fokien province the crime was more general, and at a place called Kea King Chow there were computed to be from five to six hundred cases every month. A foundling hospital at Canton was named as preventing much of the crime, but it seems to have received only five hundred infants yearly; but a very small proportion of the births. The Chinese generally confess that infanticide is practiced throughout the empire, and is regarded as an innocent and proper expedient for lightening the pressure of poverty. It is not wholly confined to the poor; the rich resort to it to conceal their amours. The laws punish illicit intercourse with from seventy to one hundred strokes of the bamboo. If a child is born, its support devolves upon the father; but in cases where the connection has been concealed, this evidence is usually destroyed.
Prostitution prevails to a prodigious extent. “Seduction and adultery,” says Williams, in his Survey of the Chinese Empire, “are comparatively infrequent, but brothels and their inmates are found every where, on land and water. One danger attending young girls walking alone is that they will be stolen for incarceration in these gates of hell.” This allusion may be explained by the fact that in 1832 there were from eight to ten thousand prostitutes in and near Canton, of whom the greater portion had been stolen while children, and regularly trained for this life. Many kidnappers gained a living by stealing young girls and selling them to the brothels, and in times of want parents have been known to lead their daughters through the streets and offer them for sale. A recent visitor to Canton describes the sale of children as an every-day affair, which is looked upon as a simple mercantile transaction. Some are disposed of for concubines, but others are deliberately bartered to be brought up as prostitutes, and are transferred at once to the brothels.
Of Chinese houses of prostitution we have no particular description, but one singular feature is the brothel junks, which are moored in conspicuous stations on the Pearl River, and are distinguished by their superior decorations. Many of them are called “Flower Boats,” and form whole avenues in the floating suburbs of Canton. The women lead a life of reckless extravagance, plunging into all the excitements which are offered by their mode of life to release themselves from ennui or reflection. Diseases are very prevalent among them, and visitors suffer severely for their temporary pleasures. They are usually congregated in troops, under the government of a man who is answerable for their conduct, or for any violation of public peace or decency. The last can scarcely be considered an offense, for the Chinese make a display of their visits to brothels. Persons pass to and from the Flower Boats without any attempt at concealment, and rich men sometimes make up a party, send to one of the junks, retain as many women as they wish, and collectively pass the time in debauch and licentiousness.
This is not the only form prostitution assumes in China. Women of the poorer classes, whose friends are not able to provide for them, are lodged in prison under the care of female warders, and these employ their prisoners in prostitution for their benefit. An incident which occurred at Shenshee a few years since reveals another phase. A young widow resided there with her mother-in-law, both being supported by the prostitution of the former. Her charms failed, she was deserted by her visitors, and starvation seemed inevitable. The old woman would not recognize her daughter’s inability to support her, and flogged her. The prostitute, in attempting self-defense, killed her mother. She was convicted of the crime, but, as the victim had acted illegally in endeavoring to force her to prostitution, the sentence of the court, which had ordered her to be hewn to pieces, was commuted into decapitation.
As before remarked, it is much to be regretted that we have not more reliable information of the vice, which is acknowledged to be all but universal in China.[370]