Lion and Dragon in Northern China

CHAPTER IX
THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

The reader who has already learned from an earlier chapter of this book how frequently women figure in the law-courts, will perhaps be prepared for a not too flattering description of Chinese womankind as represented in the leased Territory. If the litigious and quarrelsome females were typical specimens of their sex it would indeed be difficult to utter a word of truthful praise for the women of Weihaiwei. But it is only fair to remember that it is just the turbulent and masterful females that chiefly come within a British magistrate's range of experience. Chaste and filial daughters, gentle and companionable wives, brave and devoted mothers, bring happiness to multitudes of cottage homes and are to be found in every village; but they seldom come under the official notice of the authorities.

Women in Weihaiwei are, indeed, ignorant of nearly everything that is generally implied by education; they are handicapped from childhood by the thoroughly bad old custom of foot-binding; they know nothing of the world beyond the limits of their own group of villages: yet the lives they lead are probably, as a rule, happy, honourable and useful. The Chinese suppose that a woman's proper sphere is the management of the household affairs and the upbringing of her children: and Chinese women seem as a rule to acquiesce willingly and cheerfully in their lot as thus defined.

The woman's position as wife and mother is a highly honourable one: filial piety—the cardinal Chinese virtue—is owed to the mother as much as to the father, and the usual sacrificial rites are conducted in honour of the maternal as well as the paternal ancestors of the family. From prehistoric times the dignity of the mother has been regarded in China as hardly inferior to that of the father,[158] subject of course to the father's headship of the family. It would be a great mistake to suppose that Chinese women are brutally or tyrannically treated by their husbands. That cases of ill-treatment of women are sometimes met with is undoubted, but as a rule the tyrant is not the husband but some female member of the husband's family. Mothers-in-law are the domestic tyrants of rural China. Besides treating the wife with severity they often place the husband in a most unhappy dilemma.

If he wishes, as he often does, to protect his wife from the elder lady's violence or bad temper he runs the risk of being denounced to the neighbours—and perhaps to the local magistrate—as an unfilial son; if he weakly and reluctantly takes his mother's side in a domestic disagreement, or if—as is much more frequently the case—he pretends to shut his eyes altogether to the quarrels of his women-folk, the wife of his bosom may in a moment of anger or despair run away from him or commit suicide. The only source of comfort to a young wife who is unfortunate enough to displease her husband's mother is that some day, in the course of nature, she herself will be in the proud position of a mother-in-law. If she is of a cantankerous or tyrannical disposition, or if her temper has been soured by her own domestic troubles, she will then doubtless treat her son's wife with just as little kindness as she received in her own early days of wifehood, and her daughter-in-law will fear and dislike her just as she herself feared and disliked her own husband's mother. Fortunately there are good and benevolent mothers-in-law in Weihaiwei as well as bad ones: and it is only fair to add that it is not always the wife who is meek and submissive and the mother-in-law who wields the iron rod. Sometimes a high-spirited and obstinate young woman will become absolute ruler of the household—including her husband and his parents—before she has lived a month in her new home, though her tenure of authority will always be somewhat precarious until she has given birth to her first son. "Why do you run away from a woman?" I once asked an unhappy husband whose domestic troubles had driven him to the courts. "Is she not your wife, and can you not make her obey you?" The young man's features broadened into a somewhat mirthless smile as he replied, "I am afraid of her. Eight men out of ten are afraid of their wives."

Women, indeed, are at the root of a large proportion of the cases heard in the courts. No insignificant part of the duty of a magistrate in Weihaiwei consists in the taming of village shrews. The number of such women in China is much larger than might be supposed by many Europeans, who regard the average Chinese wife as the patient slave of a tyrannical master. The fact is that Chinese women, in spite of their compressed feet and mincing gait, rule their households quite as effectually as women do in countries further west, and in the lower classes they frequently extend the sphere of their masterful activity to their neighbours' houses as well. The result is not always conducive to harmony. "For ther-as the womman hath the maistrie," wrote one of the keenest students of human nature many centuries ago, "she maketh to muche desray; ther neden none ensamples of this. The experience of day by day oghte suffyse." This is a statement that multitudes of woebegone husbands in Weihaiwei, were they readers of Chaucer, would readily endorse.

The abject terror with which an uncompromising village shrew is regarded by her male relatives and neighbours frequently creates situations which would be somewhat ludicrous if they did not contain an element of pathos. It is only when his women-folk make life insupportable that an afflicted villager takes the step of appealing for magisterial intervention: but the fact that such cases frequently occur seems to indicate that domestic infelicities of a minor order must be very common. "Two months ago," wrote a petitioner, "I bought a piece of land in a neighbouring village, with the intention of building a house on it. Unfortunately, after the purchase was completed I made the discovery that my immediate neighbour was the most riotous female in the whole village. This was a very annoying circumstance to me. However I proceeded to build my house in a lawful and unostentatious manner and hoped I should have no trouble. All went well until one day when the female issued from her house and proceeded to pull my new walls to pieces on the plea that they interfered with the good luck (fêng-shui) of her own habitation. I stood by and requested her in the kindest manner to leave me and my house alone. She repaid me with the most violent abuse. How could I venture to hurl myself against the spears of the enemy? She is the terror of the whole village and her husband dares not interfere with her. I am sorry I ever bought the land, and I had no idea she was to be my neighbour or I should not have done so. I bought a charm to protect me against violent females, and stuck it up on the doorway of my new house, but it does not seem to have worked very well, and it has not frightened her at all. Meanwhile my house is standing in ruins, and I have no remedy unless the Magistrate, who loves the people as if they were his children, will come to the rescue."

This case was settled easily enough. Another bristled with difficulties owing to the fact that the plaintiff, in his petition, avoided any mention whatsoever of his real ground of complaint. "I have fifty mu of land [about eight acres]. I have two sons, the elder Ta-chü, the younger Erh-chü. In the second moon of this year they set up separate establishments[159] and entered upon possession of the ancestral lands. I was at that time in mourning for my wife, and beyond my yang-lao-ti[160] had no means of support for my old age. After they had left me, what with the expenses of my wife's funeral and my own personal requirements I found myself in debt to the extent of sixty tiao [approximately equivalent to six pounds sterling]. My two sons would not pay my debts: on the contrary they drove me out of my own house and refused to give me food. I am hungry and in hardship. My elder son, Ta-chü, at last relented and wanted to do something for me, but he was knocked down by Erh-chü and is confined to bed. I have reasoned with Erh-chü about his evil courses, but every time I do so he only beats me. The whole village is disgusted with his treatment of me but dares not interfere. Now I get wet through when it rains and I have to beg for a living. There is no rest for me. My lot has fallen in hard places. This son of mine is no better than a hsiao ching.[161] Is this the way to preserve the sacred human relationships?"

In this circumstantial petition no word of complaint is made against the real offender—the petitioner's second son's wife, who, as I soon ascertained, was a shrew of the worst order. To bring the action nominally against his second son was a clever device on the part of the petitioner, for no Chinese magistrate dare—except in almost unheard-of circumstances—take the word of a son against his own father, and an unfilial son is one of the worst of criminals. The old man presumed, therefore, that the case would be at once decided in his favour, and that his son would be imprisoned. His son's wife, the shrew, would then have been compelled to make reparation for her former misconduct and undertake to become a reformed character. When she had done this the old man would return to the magistrate and obtain her husband's release. As it happened, the process was not so circuitous as this, for the woman's misdeeds were discovered by the independent action of the court, and it was she, not her husband, who was sent to gaol. She was released as soon as her own father's family had come forward and entered—very reluctantly—into a bond to guarantee her future good conduct.

It must be remembered that as soon as a woman has left her father's roof and passes under the care of her husband—or rather of her husband's parents, if they are still alive—her father's family have no longer any legal control over her. Her husband's father and brothers become to all intents and purposes her own father and brothers: and to her father-in-law she owes the complete obedience that before marriage she owed to her father. She has in fact changed her family. Yet if she prove "unfilial"—that is, disobedient to her husband's family—a magistrate may call upon her father's family to go security for her future good conduct, on the ground that her unfilial behaviour must be due to her bad bringing-up, for which her father's family is responsible.

An English historian once pointed out that when two men sit on the same horse both of them cannot ride in front at the same time. The reference was to politics, the intimation being that there cannot be two co-ordinate controlling powers in the active government of the State: but the remark applies equally well to family life. If Crown and Parliament (or two separate Houses of Parliament) cannot have co-equal powers in the body-politic, neither can a man and a woman have co-equal powers in the body-domestic: as there must be a supreme authority in the State, so there must be a supreme authority in the Family. Such used to be the theory of Englishmen, and such is still the theory of the Chinese. They have a proverb which recalls Gardiner's criticism of Clarendon's constitutional ideal. The Chinese say: "One horse cannot carry two saddles; the loyal servant cannot serve two masters."[162] But though in China the husband is legally possessed of very extensive powers over his wife and has every right to administer corporal punishment if she disobeys him or fails to treat his parents with proper respect, it is very rarely indeed that one hears of such powers being exercised in Weihaiwei.[163] No Chinese husband within my experience at Weihaiwei has ever been convicted of wife-beating: whereas the physical castigation of husbands by wives is by no means unheard of.

The northern Chinese use a curious and highly appropriate expression to describe a woman of the shrew type. They call her a ma-chieh-ti or "Curse-the-street woman." This is the kind of female who by blows or threats drives her husband out of the house, follows him into the road, and there—if he has sought safety in flight—proceeds to pour torrents of abuse at the top of her voice upon her male and female neighbours and all and sundry passers-by. If the village street happens to be entirely empty she will address her remarks to the papered windows, on the chance of there being listeners behind them. As a rule the neighbours will come out to "see the fun." The abused persons generally refrain from repartee, and the men—taking care to keep out of reach of the nails of the ma-chieh-ti—gaze at her pensively and with impassive features until her spent voice fades into a hoarse whisper or physical exhaustion lays her helpless on the ground. But some quarrelsome female neighbour—herself no mean mistress of words—will often delight in advancing to a contest which is almost sure to end in bleeding faces and torn clothes. Then husbands and grandfathers are reluctantly compelled to intervene, and "peace-talkers" will help to coax the two infuriated combatants into calmness. If their efforts are unavailing, the result may be either a suicide or a lawsuit.

Women of this type feel themselves at home in the courts, and a fit of anger will often send them hobbling off to the magistrate with some trumpery and usually false accusation against a relation or a neighbour. Such was a case brought by one Liu Hsia Shih against a harmless old man whose real offence was that he had recommended her to look after her babies instead of "cursing the street." I despatched a constable to make enquiries into the matter, and she promptly handed him the princely sum of one dollar with the suggestion that he should give me a report favourable to herself. In accordance with very strict regulations relating to bribery, the constable paid the money into court. I summoned the parties to the suit, rebuked the female for attempted bribery, and in dismissing her frivolous action adjudged the dollar to her adversary. Probably the fact that he had got her money was in her view even more exasperating than the loss of her case.

Very frequently a ma-chieh-ti who brings her imagined wrongs to court will point to wounds and scratches on her face and body as evidence that she has been assaulted: whereas the injuries have been in all probability self-inflicted. One Liang Wang Shih brought complaints of ill-treatment against her adopted grandson and his wife. "They behave in a most cruel manner," she said. "He incites her to bite me. She bites my shoulder." She then proceeded partially to disrobe herself in order that the supposed marks of her grand-daughter's teeth might be inspected by the court. Another querulous woman forcibly prevented a neighbour from putting a wall round his own vegetable-garden. "I recently built a new house," explained her unfortunate neighbour. "This woman's grandson died soon afterwards, and she declares that it was my new house that killed him, by spoiling the fêng-shui of her family. She says she will not let me build my garden-wall until I restore her grandson to life."

The marriage customs of Weihaiwei being in principle identical with those prevailing in other parts of China, a detailed description of them would be out of place here. It will be sufficient to say that nearly every one gets married a few years after arrival at a marriageable age, the bridegroom being as a rule rather older than the bride. The majority of marriages are the outcome of long-standing betrothals. A betrothal is in practice as binding as a marriage; indeed, a betrothal that took place in the babyhood of both the principals may, in certain circumstances, be regarded as an actual marriage. If, for example, the youth dies when of marriageable age but before the marriage has taken place, and if he was at the same time an only son, the betrothed girl (whom he may or may not have seen) will often be recognised as his legal wife; and if she preserves her "widowhood" with fidelity her name will appear beside his own on the tombstone and in the family registers. If the girl declares at the death of her betrothed that she is willing to be regarded as his widow, it then becomes possible (in accordance with an old and very curious custom) for the dead youth and his living wife to be provided with a "son" by adoption, and this "son"—who will probably be a young nephew—nominally acts as principal mourner at the funeral, inherits the deceased's share of the family property, and carries on the rites of ancestral worship. If the girl or her family decline (as very naturally they usually do) to recognise the betrothal contract as binding after the bridegroom's death, the parents of the dead youth will proceed to find him a bride in the person of a dead girl. This girl must have died unmarried and should be of suitable age and family: that is to say, a youth and maiden who could not have been betrothed to each other in life should not be joined in matrimony after death.[164]

The arrangements for a wedding of this extraordinary nature are not carried out directly by the parents of the dead boy and girl, but through middlemen appointed by them (known as kuei mei or "ghostly go-betweens"), and many of the other formalities which attend an ordinary marriage are observed with scrupulous care. If the girl has already been buried in the graveyard of her own family her body is exhumed and reburied beside that of the dead bridegroom: and on the tombstone erected at the foot of the grave are duly carved their two names as those of husband and wife. The custom is extremely old: it is mentioned in the Chou Li, a book which deals with the laws and customs of China from the twelfth century B.C. onwards. Its origin may perhaps be traced to the same notions that lay at the root of the widely-prevalent Oriental custom of widow immolation or sati: the theory being that the sacrifice of widows and slaves at the tomb of a dead man provided him in the comfortless world of shades with the companionship to which he had been accustomed in life. But this strange system of weddings between the dead is practised to-day in Weihaiwei only in order to secure the perpetuation of the sacrificial rites connected with the ancestral cult and to bring about a suitable partition of the family property.

If a youth dies unmarried and is an only son, the necessary consequence would appear to be the extinction of the family or the particular branch which the deceased represented. To prevent the occurrence of such a calamity it is necessary in China to provide the deceased with a son by formal adoption. But the matter-of-fact Chinese mind declines to contemplate the possibility of adopting a son for one who, being a bachelor, was not in a position to have a legitimate heir in the ordinary process of nature. It is therefore necessary to begin by providing him with a wife; and this is done by the peculiar arrangement just described, known locally as ka (or chieh) ssŭ ch'in—the "celebration of a dead marriage." As a rule it is not difficult for parents to find a suitable wife for their dead son, for the family of a girl who has died unmarried will always be glad to have their deceased daughter raised to the honourable status of a married woman. Sometimes, however, complicating circumstances arise. A man named Yü Huai-yüeh died, without children and unmarried, in the tenth year of Kuang Hsü—corresponding to 1884. At that time he had brothers living, and as the family was in no danger of extinction it was not considered necessary to take further action. During subsequent years the brothers also died without issue, and the sorrowing relatives of the family decided in 1897 that Yü Huai-yüeh should at last be provided with a wife. In due time it was reported by "ghostly go-betweens" that a bride with a suitable horoscope was to be found in the family of Hsia of the neighbouring village of Chao Chia. This was a girl who had died as long ago as 1876. In spite of the disparity of the dates of death the ceremony was duly performed: thus a bride who had been in her grave for more than a generation was wedded to a bridegroom who died thirteen years before his own marriage.

In ordinary cases the repudiation of a betrothal contract while the principals are both living is by law and custom visited by heavy penalties. Paradoxical as the statement may appear, it is often easier in China to get rid of a wife after the marriage ceremony has taken place than to jilt her during the period of betrothal. There is little or no romance about a Chinese engagement. The parents of bride and bridegroom may or may not be known to each other; as a rule they are strangers, for a girl is rarely married to a resident in her own village. The reasons for this are not far to seek. As we have seen, a typical Weihaiwei village is composed of persons of one surname. The "prohibited degrees" in China are far more comprehensive than those set forth in the English Book of Common Prayer. All persons of the same surname are regarded as blood relations, and as such they cannot intermarry. The father of a family must therefore find husbands and wives for his children in some village other than his own. In accordance with venerable custom, regular marriages are negotiated neither by the parties chiefly concerned nor by their parents. Betrothals are always in practice arranged through go-betweens or middlemen (mei jên) who are understood to be the disinterested friends of both the contracting parties. In return for their services they receive various little presents and welcome invitations to sundry little feasts.[165]

It is often declared that in China the bridegroom never has a chance of seeing his bride or making her acquaintance until the fateful moment when she raises her bridal veil: and many are the sad stories told of the bitter disappointment of the girl who unexpectedly finds that her husband is a decrepit old man, or the ardent young bridegroom who suddenly realises that he is lord of an ugly or sour-faced wife instead of the dainty beauty described by the deceitful go-between. But such regrettable incidents are rare in rural China. It is true that marriage is hardly ever preceded by love-making, and that young people have as a rule absolutely no say in the important matter of the choice of a husband. Yet the women of the farming classes in a rural district such as Weihaiwei are by no means concealed from public view; if a young man does not catch a sight of his betrothed at some village festival or a theatrical performance he is sure to have many opportunities of beholding her at work in the fields at harvest time or washing clothes at the side of the local brook. Sometimes, indeed, the young couple grow up together in the same household almost like brother and sister. This happens when, after child-betrothal has taken place, the girl's parents die or are too poor to keep her. She then passes to the bridegroom's family and is theoretically supposed to be brought up as a daughter of the house, though sometimes she is treated as a mere servant or drudge. Such a girl is known as a t'uan-yüan hsi-fu. As an orphan, or the daughter of poor or helpless parents, she is expected to cultivate a more than usually meek and respectful demeanour towards the parents of her betrothed, and to be "thankful for small mercies." When the boy's parents (for the boy himself has no say in the matter) decide that a fitting time for the marriage has arrived, it is customary for the girl to be sent temporarily to the care of some relative, where she remains until the wedding-day. This is in order that in accordance with the usual custom she may enjoy the privilege of being carried to her husband's home in a red marriage-chair. In such a case as this the bride and bridegroom are of course well acquainted with each other's personal appearance and disposition, and have good reason to know, before the wedding takes place, whether their married life is likely to be a happy one. If the prospects are adverse, the bridegroom-elect can only escape his doom by running away, for the betrothal cannot be repudiated. The bride, poor child, has no choice in the matter one way or another.

Marriages in Weiheiwei—in spite of the optimistic dictum of the Chinese chronicler already quoted—are very often, like marriages elsewhere, negotiated in a mercenary spirit and with a keen eye to "business." The Roman coemptio was undoubtedly in origin a system of marriage by purchase; and perhaps the practice if not the theory is in many Western countries the same to-day. In rural China the average father wants to procure for his son the best possible wife at the lowest possible cost; the girl's father wants to give his daughter to the family that will allow him the largest compensation for his own outlay. The financial part of the arrangements is so prominent in the minds of the plain-speaking peasants of Weihaiwei that they will talk of buying and selling their wives and daughters in much the same way as they would talk of dealing in farm produce at the neighbouring market. The local practice (as apart from the law of China) in matters concerning marriage is in some respects curious. "My wife has run away from me," stated a petitioner. "She lived with me nearly three years. I know where she is, but I cannot make her come back to me because I originally got her for nothing. She left me because I was too poor. She took away with her nothing that was not her own. I have no complaint to make against her."

The people of Weihaiwei know nothing of regular divorce proceedings. The man whose wife deserts him or runs away with another man may proceed to take unto himself a second wife without the least fear of a Crown prosecution for bigamy. Under Chinese law a man may, indeed, regularly divorce his wife for a variety of offences—including rudeness to his parents and talkativeness—but in Weihaiwei few husbands avail themselves of their rights in this respect; in the first place the husband is reluctant—especially if he is still childless—to lose the lady for whom he or his parents paid a good round sum in cash, and, secondly, he is afraid of getting into trouble with her family, who will quite probably drag him before the magistrate on a charge of brutal treatment of a gentle and long-suffering wife—their object being to "save face" and to extract from the husband substantial pecuniary compensation. If his wife's family is numerous and wealthy, the unhappy man who is wedded to an untamable shrew is often driven to desperate expedients to break his chains. He may, indeed, emigrate to Peking or Manchuria—the usual resorts of persons who find life unbearable in Weihaiwei—but this will only result in shifting the trouble from his own shoulders to those of his parents or brothers.

Only a few days before the penning of these lines a man named Shih Kuan-yung came to report to me the mysterious death of his younger brother. "His wife treated him shamefully," was the story. "He bore it for several years, but the breaking-point came two days ago. He then went off to his father-in-law's house, and yesterday he died there." On inquiry it turned out that the wretched man, after an unusually bitter passage of words with his wife, swallowed a dose of poison and then went off to die in his wife's father's house as a protest against his wife's bad conduct and as a sure means of bringing trouble upon her relations. His brother suggested to the court that he, as the deceased's only surviving relative, should be empowered to sell the widow and pocket the proceeds as a solace for his bereavement. The court refused to act upon this suggestion, but satisfied public opinion by imposing a moderate punishment on the lady's family and compelling it to defray all the expenses of the funeral.

The fact that the husband in this case could think of no better means of punishing his wife than by dying on her father's doorstep shows that though a woman on marriage theoretically passes from one patria potestas to another and thenceforward belongs solely to her husband's family or p'o chia, her father's family or niang-chia may in certain circumstances retain considerable influence over her destiny as a married woman; and if the family is rich and influential it may make matters intensely disagreeable for the husband and his relations should the woman find her new home less comfortable than the old one. The woman whose niang-chia is poor and without influence (as we have seen in the case of a t'uan-yüan hsi-fu) rarely dares to hold her head high or treat her p'o chia with contempt. She knows that henceforth it will be to her own interest to please her husband and his parents as far as in her lies, for she can look for no help from her father's family in the event of trouble. It is a terrible grief to a young married woman to know that her own family has made up its mind to take no further interest in her. A headman once reported to me that a woman in his village, recently married, had committed suicide simply because when the time came for her to pay the first ceremonial visit to her father and mother after her wedding, no one was sent (in accordance with the usual custom) from her old home to escort her thither. For several days she moped and moaned, her incessant cry being, "I have no niang-chia, I have no niang-chia"; and one day her husband found her hanging dead from a peg in the wall.

Sometimes a girl's family will evince no interest whatever in her doings as a married woman until her suicide gives them an opportunity of showing that "blood is thicker than water." If they do not demand a magisterial enquiry into the cause of death they will at least keep a careful eye on the funeral arrangements and prevent the widower's family from carrying them out with insufficient splendour or too much regard to economy. An expensive funeral on such an occasion is satisfactory to the dead woman's relations from two points of view: it reflects glory on themselves and gives them "face," and it serves as a costly punishment for the bereaved husband who has to pay the bill.

Though nearly every one in Weihaiwei, as in the rest of China, gets married sooner or later, it sometimes happens that through the early death of his betrothed or some other unavoidable cause a man finds himself still unmarried at an age when his contemporaries are the proud parents of large families. The older he is the harder will it be for him to contract a marriage through the customary process of a formal betrothal. He may indeed find a widow who is open to receive an advantageous offer; but in China it is not considered creditable or fitting for a widow to re-marry unless dire poverty compels her to do so. The model Chinese widow is expected to serve and cherish her late husband's parents as long as they live, and to devote her spare time to the careful upbringing of her own children. A woman's second marriage is not attended by the pomp and circumstance of the first. It is only once in her life that a Chinese woman is entitled to sit in the red chair of a bride. A common practice for an elderly bachelor of Weihaiwei is to entrust a friend in Peking or some other large centre of population with the task of procuring a wife for him by the simple expedient of cash-purchase. The friend buys the woman and brings her back to Weihaiwei on one of his return visits; and, as he will very likely have been entrusted with several similar commissions, he will possibly return with a bevy of damsels of varying charms and widely different ages and degrees of comeliness. He is not, of course, expected to go through his trouble for nothing; and indeed the business is regarded as so lucrative that some men will secretly tout for commissions to buy wives, and will go from Weihaiwei to Peking for that express purpose.

The practice is, of course, highly discreditable to every one concerned. It is a punishable offence in China, and is sternly reprobated and discouraged by the British Government. As far as the women themselves are concerned, however, the abuses that attend the system are less serious than might be expected. In most cases they are the daughters of extremely poor parents who cannot afford to support them. By becoming the wives of poor but honest and respectable farmers in a district like Weihaiwei, their position has certainly changed for the better. Most of them are thoroughly cognisant of this fact; indeed, it is rarely that they express a desire to leave their new homes even when the Government offers them a free passage back to their native place. Their position, be it remembered, is not a dishonourable one. Though not always married according to the prescribed rites, they are by general consent regarded as wives, and their children inherit the family property as legitimate heirs. Sometimes, indeed, a poor girl from Peking, who has been led to expect that she is being taken to a rich young husband, feels a pang of bitter disappointment when she finds herself face to face with a poor and elderly man whose entire savings have been exhausted by the purchase of herself; yet in nine cases out of ten she accepts with resignation what the gods have given her, and settles down to the quiet life of a well-behaved matron. It is indeed to the interest of the woman's purchaser that he should treat her with kindness, for if she becomes seriously dissatisfied she may cause him endless discomfort.

Not long ago eight men came to the South Division court at Weihaiwei with a petition on behalf of one of their relatives, Yü K'o-chih, who was married to a woman named Chao Shih, imported from Peking. She had been selected and purchased for him in Peking by his brother, Yü K'o-shun. Now this woman, explained the petitioners, was unfortunately addicted to the luxurious habits and customs in vogue at the capital, and took no pains to adapt herself to the simple life of Weihaiwei. Chao Shih was, in fact, a self-willed person who did exactly what she chose, and when any one remonstrated with her she threatened to run away. Matters remained in this unsatisfactory condition until she at last carried out her threat and disappeared. She was traced to Weihaiwei city, a distance of about twelve miles. Her husband's brother, Yü K'o-shun,[166] accompanied by some of his relatives, went in pursuit of the fugitive, tracked her to her hiding-place, and hired a cart to convey her back to her husband. She resolutely refused to get into the cart and also declined to accept the alternative of riding a mule. She was finally carried off by force and the party set out on the homeward journey. Unfortunately the woman kicked and screamed incessantly, thereby making such a disturbance on the highway that a detective who happened to meet the noisy procession came to the conclusion that it was a case of kidnapping, and promptly arrested the whole party. The petitioners now requested that since the matter had been clearly explained the magistrate would issue an order for the release of the prisoners and allow the troublesome Chao Shih to be returned to the arms of her anxious husband. The magistrate's difficulty in this case was unexpectedly solved by the lady herself, who assured the court that she was weary of a roving life and promised to be a good and dutiful wife for the rest of her days.

Certainly the system of procuring wives from Peking is liable to produce disappointments that are not all on the side of the women. Listen to the tale of woe of one Chung Yen-shêng, a Weihaiwei resident who in an ill-starred hour had decided to obtain for himself a wife from the capital. "I have tried to make the best of her for over two years," he said in court, "but it was no good. When I bought her I didn't know she was an opium-smoker, but she was. I bought her for forty-eight taels (between seven and eight pounds sterling). What with travelling expenses and clothes she cost me altogether seventy taels before she arrived in Weihaiwei. She was a failure. She was very extravagant, and I had to sell some of my land to satisfy her. She suddenly left me of her own accord in the tenth moon of last year. She went to K'ung Chia village. I was glad to get rid of her. She went to the house of K'ung Fu-hsiang. I met him afterwards and I told him he might keep the woman for all I cared, but I wanted some of my money back. He gave me forty-five taels. I think I ought to get sixty, and I have come to court to obtain a judgment against him for the balance of fifteen taels. (Cross-examined) I would not take the woman back on any account. I have no children, but I shall not look for another wife. My younger brother's branch can carry on the ancestral worship of our family."

The old belief, long held by Europeans, that the Chinese habitually practise polygamy probably became extinct some years ago. The fact is, of course, that a Chinese has only one wife, though he may possess legally recognised concubines. Among the agricultural classes in China concubinage is not common, and in Weihaiwei it is comparatively rare. The farmer who takes unto himself a concubine does it not only with the knowledge but usually with the full approval of his wife, and as a duty which (if his wife is childless) he owes to his ancestors. So far as British experience goes in Weihaiwei the practice is not productive of evil effects. If both a wife and a concubine become mothers, the family property, when the time for partition arrives, is divided equally among all the sons without any discrimination.[167] But it sometimes happens that another child is born after the partition (fên-chia[168]) has already taken place. If the mother of such child is the ch'i or wife, the whole of the family property will again be put as it were into the melting-pot and re-divided—the latest-born child being entitled to a share equal to that of each of his brothers. But if the child's mother is only a concubine there will be no repartition, and either the child will be given a portion of his parents' yang-lao-ti[169] or his brothers will be morally obliged to make suitable provision for him out of their respective shares. Practically, therefore, there is very little difference in position between a wife's son and a concubine's son.

A modified form of domestic slavery is occasionally found in Weihaiwei as elsewhere in China: though slavery is indeed much too harsh a term to apply to a form of service which is totally devoid of hardship or degradation. The Chinese are as a rule indulgent masters and are hardly ever (in the part of China with which we are dealing) guilty of deliberate cruelty towards the inferior members of their households. The so-called slaves are generally bought as young girls from poor parents or guardians for the purpose of domestic service. They are treated as subordinate members of the family, and as a rule partake of much the same fare as their masters and mistresses. Their owners are responsible for their good health and moral character, and are expected to help them in due time to obtain respectable husbands. The great majority of the people of Weihaiwei, being only small farmers, are compelled to do their own house-work unaided: slave-girls are thus found only in a few of the most prosperous households. An instance will show that in spite of the indulgent treatment accorded to them, slave-girls are regarded as the absolute property of their purchasers.

A petitioner named Ch'ü Wên-k'uei complained of "the unlawful annexation of a female slave" of whom he declared himself to be the rightful owner. "Five years ago I became by formal adoption the son of my father's elder brother, who died childless. His widow, my adoptive mother, bought a slave-girl two years ago for the sum of one hundred dollars. My aunt and adoptive mother died two months ago and I have inherited her property. The slave-girl is part of the property and therefore by right belongs to me. Unfortunately a short time before her death my adoptive mother lent the slave-girl to the Ts'ung family, and the Ts'ung family now refuses to hand her over to me on the plea that she has been betrothed to one of the little Ts'ungs. As I gave no consent to her betrothal I consider it null and void, and I petition for an order of the court requiring the Ts'ung family to return my slave-girl without further ado." To the surprise of both parties the court allowed the question of her disposal to be decided by the slave-girl herself, and she elected to stay with the family of her betrothed.

CHAPTER X
WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

The remarriage of a widow is, as we have seen, regarded in the best circles with disapproval. The model wife—the wife to whom a commemorative arch is erected on the roadside near her home and whose name is handed down to posterity in the official chronicle of her district as a pattern of virtue—is as scrupulously faithful to her husband after his death as during his life. But very poor families—such as are the majority of the families of Weihaiwei—cannot afford to support widows for the mere joy of contemplating their fidelity and chastity: hence we find that in practice a young widow is often not only induced by her late husband's family to enter into a second marriage and so rid them of the necessity of supporting her, but is practically compelled to get married before the expiration of the period of deep mourning, which lasts twenty-seven months. For a widow to re-marry while in mourning for her husband is by Chinese law a penal offence: though when the offence is committed on account of the straitened circumstances of the widow and her first husband's family it is generally allowed to pass without official notice or censure.

If a young widow has presented her late husband with children it is less likely that his family will insist upon a second marriage than if she is childless: indeed, if the family is well-to-do, it will sometimes take active preventive measures if she herself contemplates such a step. When a widow with children remarries, the children remain with the first husband's family, or at any rate revert to that family after the years of early childhood. It is when a childless young widow, in spite of the solicitations of her husband's family, obstinately refuses to take a second husband that domestic troubles arise which are likely to end in the law-courts. If the widow's father-in-law finds it impossible to remove her aversion to a second marriage he will probably come to the court with a trumped-up charge against her of "unfilial" behaviour. One Chang Yün-shêng brought an action in my court against his deceased son's wife, who was a daughter of the Lin family, for cruelty and want of respect. "She is disobedient," he said; "she refuses to feed me, and she constantly assaults and vilifies my wife and myself. In our old age we find such conduct on the part of our daughter-in-law intolerable, and I implore the court to devise some means of recalling her to a sense of duty and obedience."

The case soon wore a different aspect when the woman's father, Lin Pa, put in an appearance and explained that Chang's sole object in making a series of false and unjust accusations against a blameless young woman was that he might be sure of magisterial sympathy and help in the matter of compelling her to accept a second marriage. This on investigation was found to be the key to the situation. Chang regarded the woman as a family asset which he desired to realise in cash. Her remarriage would have been negotiated purely as a mercantile transaction, the profits of which would have gone into the money-bags of Chang. As the covetous old man was well able to support his son's wife—indeed she was living without expense to him on the property which had come to her husband before his death as a result of fên-chia[170]—the court required him to find substantial security that in no circumstances would he attempt to dispose of the person of his daughter-in-law against her will. The interference of the woman's father in this case affords another proof that a woman's own family does not necessarily abandon her for ever to the caprice of the family into which she has married.

Chinese local histories contain many accounts of the various devices resorted to by devoted widows for the purpose of avoiding the dishonour of a second marriage. De Groot[171] quotes the case of a child-widow—she was only fifteen years of age—who, as a reply to the demands made upon her to enter into a second marriage, took a solemn oath of chastity and confirmed it by cutting off her ears and placing them on a dish. Thereupon, as the historian says, her relatives "gave up their project," perhaps from pity or admiration of the poor child's heroic conduct, perhaps from the belief that no self-respecting man would care for an earless bride. If the annals of Weihaiwei show no cases quite identical with this, they contain accounts of many a young widow who has died to avoid remarriage.

But first let us consider a few typical cases of a less tragic nature. Of Wang Shih, the wife of a graduate named Ch'i, we are told that when her husband died leaving her with an infant boy, she, though still a very young woman, refrained from a second marriage, lived an exemplary life, educated her boy with exceptional care, and survived to the age of ninety-five: living just long enough to witness the marriage of her great-grandson. To live to a green old age is regarded as one of the rewards of a virtuous life. In China, those whom the gods love die old. Ch'ê Liu Shih, say the Annals of Ning-hai, was for similar reasons rewarded by no less than one hundred and two years of life. This was in the present dynasty. Judging by length of life, still higher virtue must have been shown in the Yüan dynasty (1280-1367), for we read of Liu Shih, a lady who lived to the age of one hundred and three, and was celebrated as the happy mother of three noble sons. T'ang Chu Shih, a Ning-hai widow of the Ming dynasty, became so famous for her virtuous refusals of marriage that she was honoured by the local magistrate with the official presentation of a laudatory scroll bearing the words "Pure and chaste as frozen snow." Wang Sun Shih became a grass-widow about ten days after her marriage, for her husband was obliged to go abroad. After a short absence news was brought her that her lord was dead. She was wretchedly poor, but she maintained an honourable widowhood to her death. Yüeh Ch'i Shih was left a widow soon after marriage. The family was very poor. She served her father-in-law and brought up her son with the utmost zeal and care. She was most industrious (all this is carefully recorded in the Annals) in looking after the household and in preparing the morning and evening meals. She worked all her ten fingers to the utmost without sparing herself. She died when still young. Sun Liu Shih became a widow at the age of nineteen. She strongly desired to die with her husband, but her parents-in-law pointed out that they were old and required her services. She obeyed and remained with them, refusing remarriage. She arranged to have a son adopted for her husband, and educated him with the utmost care and self-sacrifice. Wang Hsüeh Shih was left a widow at the age of twenty-five. She had a little son aged three. She brought him up to manhood and arranged a marriage for him. Both her son and his bride died within a year. She then urged her father-in-law to take a concubine in order to carry on the family, for her late husband had been an only son. Some years later the Literary Chancellor of the Province presented an honorary tablet in commemoration of her virtue.

Cases of this kind—where young widows refuse remarriage and devote their lives to the service of their parents-in-law and their own children—are so common that in many parts of China they are the rule rather than the exception, though it is not every such case, of course, that comes before the notice of the authorities and receives official recognition. The matter of widows' suicides is one that perhaps deserves more careful attention.

Sociological writers have pointed to the steady increase in suicide as one of the most alarming characteristics of modern civilised life, inasmuch as it seems to indicate a biological deterioration of the race. Probably this is so in Europe, where religious and ethical teachings set so high a value on life that the man who deprives himself of it of his own accord is commonly regarded as either a criminal or a lunatic; but we must beware of supposing that if suicide indicates biological decay in England or Saxony it has the same indication among the populations of the Far East. The common view that Orientals despise life and will throw it away on the slenderest provocation is not, indeed, strictly accurate. Self-slaughter in Weihaiwei and throughout China is probably far commoner than anywhere in Europe, in spite of the numerous European suicides traceable to the appalling mental and moral degradation brought about by alcoholism; and there is no doubt that the Oriental will hang or poison himself for reasons which would be altogether insufficient to make the average European do so. But the Oriental will never take this extreme step except from a motive which from his point of view is all-compelling: so that after all the only difference between the Oriental and the European in this respect seems to lie in the nature of the motive, not in its intensity.

That the instinct of self-preservation is stronger among Europeans than among Chinese is an unproved and perhaps unprovable thesis: though it is true that Chinese women seem to have a contempt for death which possibly arises from a quiescent imagination. One reason why suicides are less common among Europeans is that the would-be suicide in a country like England must not only face the natural fear of death and (if he happens to believe in the teachings of his Church) the probability or certainty of terrible sufferings in another state of existence, but he is also obliged to contemplate the dishonour that will besmirch his name and the consequent misery and discomfort that will be brought upon his family.

These deterrent considerations can seldom affect the would-be suicide in China. Both Confucianism and Buddhism, indeed, forbid self-destruction: but Confucianism is vague on the subject of life beyond the grave, and Buddhism as taught in China lays no stress on any terrors that may await the suicide. The northern Chinese, including those of Weihaiwei, are inclined to the belief that a suicide's only punishment consists in being obliged as a lonely earth-bound spirit to wander about in the neighbourhood of his old home until he can persuade some living person to follow his example. When his victim yields to his sinister suggestions and commits suicide the first ghost is set free: though what use he makes of his freedom seems to be a doubtful point. It then becomes the second ghost's turn to look for a victim. Thus all apparently motiveless suicides are supposed to be caused by the ghostly promptings of those who have taken their own lives in the past. When a suicide of this kind takes place in a Weihaiwei village it is believed that another suicide will inevitably follow within an extreme limit of two years. Neither public opinion nor the law of the land stigmatises suicide as a crime: persons who attempt and fail to kill themselves are never prosecuted.

The attitude of the more philosophically-minded of the Chinese towards the subject of suicide in general is perhaps somewhat similar to that of the Stoic Epictetus, who on the one hand forbids it and on the other hand calls attention to the fact that the door out of life is always open to those who feel that they have good reason to use it. As for self-destruction involving dishonour in the eyes of society, this is so far from being the case in China that in certain circumstances the exact opposite is the result. Posthumous honours have been showered upon suicides by imperial edict, monuments have been erected to their memory, they have been canonised and their tablets honoured with official worship in the public temples, and they have bequeathed to their relatives and descendants a glory that shines undimmed for many successive generations.

These distinguished suicides, it should be hardly necessary to say, have generally been women, and the glory of their deed has consisted in the fidelity and heroism that have impelled them to follow their dead husbands to the grave: but many of them are noble-minded statesmen and patriots who have voluntarily sealed with their own blood some protest against the follies or mistakes of emperors or have taken their own lives as a means of drawing public attention to some grave danger that menaced the State.[172]