Part 40 (1/2)
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 prost.i.tuting 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 chast.i.ty. 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 prost.i.tutes 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.
CELEBES.
Leaving the Asiatic Continent for a short time, we will now examine the condition of the inhabitants of Celebes. This island is noticed here rather than with Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, which are included in the list of barbarous nations, because it enjoys a considerable degree of civilization, and in its political and social state is far in advance of other countries of the Indian Archipelago. The idea of freedom is recognized in its public system, and its inst.i.tutions have a.s.sumed a republican form.
Women are not excluded from their share in public business; and though their influence is usually indirect, their counsel is sought by the men on all important occasions. In Wajo, they are not only elected to the throne, or, rather, the presidential chair, but also often fill the great offices of state. Four out of the six councilors are frequently females.
Their domestic condition, to some extent, corresponds with their political privileges. The wife has the uncontrolled management of her household, eating with her husband, and mingling freely with the other s.e.x on public or festival occasions. The women ride about, transact business, and even visit foreigners as they please, and their chast.i.ty is better guarded by the sense of honor and the pride of virtue, than by the jealousy of husbands or the surveillance of parents.
This is the bright side of the picture. For the reverse, we find the barbarian practice of polygamy, which is universally permitted, under certain restrictions. The most important of these is that two wives seldom inhabit the same house; each has usually a separate dwelling. The men can easily procure a divorce, and, if the wish to separate is mutual, nothing remains but to do so as quickly as possible. If the woman alone desires to be released from the matrimonial bond, she must produce a reasonable ground of complaint. Concubinage is rarely practiced, although some man may take a woman of inferior rank as a companion until he can marry a girl whose birth equals his own.
The morals of both men and women are superior to those of any other race in eastern or western Asia. Prost.i.tution is all but unknown. The dancing girls are generally admitted to be of easy virtue, but even they preserve decorum in their manners, and dress with great decency, although their public performances are of a lascivious nature.
CHINA.
In the immense empire of China a general uniformity of manners is observable, for its civilization has been cast in a mould fas.h.i.+oned by despotism, and the iron discipline of its government forces all to yield.
There is great reason to believe that prost.i.tution forms no exception to the rule. We know that a remarkable system exists, that frail women abound in the Celestial Empire, and form a distinct cla.s.s. We know something of the manner in which they live, and how or by whom they are encouraged, but no traveler has as yet given any lucid account of the vice and its connections, and our comparatively meagre knowledge is drawn from a multiplicity of sources.
The general condition of the female s.e.x in China is inferior to the male, and the precepts and examples of Confucius have taught the people that the former were created for the convenience of the latter. Feminine virtue is severely guarded by the law; not for the sake of virtue, but for the well-being of the state and the interest of the men. But national morality, inculcated by codes, essays, and poems, is, in fact, a dead letter, for the Chinese rank among the most immoral people on the earth.
The inferiority of women is recognized in their politics, which embrace the spirit of the Salic law. The throne can be occupied only by a man, and an illegitimate son is more respected than a legitimate daughter.
The paternal government of China has not failed to legislate on the subject of marriage. In this contract the inclinations of the parties themselves are practically ignored; parental authority is supreme, and it is not unusual for weddings to take place between persons who have never seen each other before the union. Matchmaking is followed as a profession by some old women, who are remunerated when they succeed. When two families commence a negotiation of this kind, all particulars are required to be fully explained on both sides, so that no deceit can be practiced.
The engagement is then drawn, and the amount of presents agreed on. This contract is irrevocable. If the friends of the girl desire to break off the match, the one who had authority to dispose of her receives fifty strokes of the bamboo, and the marriage proceeds. If the bridegroom, or the friend who controls him is dissatisfied, he receives the same punishment, and must fulfill his engagement. If either of the parties is incontinent after betrothal, the crime is punished as adultery. If any deceit has been practiced, and either person has falsely represented the party about to be married, the offender is severely punished, and the marriage is void, even if completed. In spite of all precautions, such instances sometimes occur. It must be noticed that, though betrothal binds a woman positively to her future husband, yet he can not force her from her friends before the stipulated time has expired, nor can they retain her beyond the a.s.signed day.
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 relations.h.i.+p definitely specified, but the union of cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s, receives sixty strokes of the bamboo, and the same _modic.u.m_ 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 circ.u.mstances 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 prost.i.tute them for gain.
From this view of the social condition of women and the laws of marriage, it is necessary to pa.s.s 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 cla.s.ses, and the severity of the laws respecting illicit s.e.xual intercourse. The former is the princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sist his parents in addition. Among this cla.s.s 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 a.s.sured 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.
Prost.i.tution 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 h.e.l.l.” This allusion may be explained by the fact that in 1832 there were from eight to ten thousand prost.i.tutes 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 prost.i.tutes, and are transferred at once to the brothels.
Of Chinese houses of prost.i.tution 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.