Part 24

The manners and customs of the Chinese, and their social characteristics, have employed many pens and many tongues, and will continue to furnish all inexhaustible field for students of sociology, of religion, of philosophy, of civilization, for centuries to come. Such studies, however, scarcely touch the province of the practical, at least as yet, for one principal reason--that the subject is so vast, the data are so infinite, as to overwhelm the student rather than assist him in sound generalizations.--A. R. Colquhoun in "China in Transformation."

XVI

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE CHINESE WOMAN

The home life of a people is too sacred to be touched except by the hand of friendship. Our doors are closed to strangers, locked to enemies, and opened only to those of our own race who are in harmony and sympathy with us. What then shall we say when people of an alien race come seeking admission? They must bring some social distinction,--letters of introduction, or an ability to help us in ways in which we cannot help ourselves.

In the case of a people as exclusive as the Chinese this is especially true, so that with the exception of one or two women physicians and the wife of one of our diplomats no one has ever been admitted in a social as well as professional way to the women's apartments of the homes of the better class of the Chinese people.

A Chinese home is different from our own. It is composed of many one-story buildings, around open courts, one behind the other, and sometimes covers several acres of ground. Then it is divided into men's and women's apartments, the men receiving their friends in theirs and the women likewise receiving their friends by a side gate in their own apartments, which are at the rear of the dwelling. A wealthy man usually, in addition to his wife, has one or more concubines, and each of these ladies has an apartment of her own for herself and her children,--though all the children of all the concubines reckon as belonging to the first wife.

I have heard Sir Robert Hart tell an amusing incident which occurred in Peking. He said that the Chinese minister appointed to the court of Saint James came to call on him before setting out upon his journey. After conversing for some time he said:

"I should be glad to see Lady Hart. I believe it is customary in calling on a foreign gentleman to see his lady, is it not?"

"It is," said Sir Robert, "and I should be delighted to have you see her, but Lady Hart was in England with our children, and has not been here for twenty years."

"Ah, indeed, then perhaps I might see your second wife."

"That you might, if I had one. But the customs of our country do not allow us to have a second wife. Indeed they would imprison us if we were to have two wives."

"How singular," said the official with a nod of his head. "You do not appreciate the advantages of this custom of ours."

That there are advantages in this custom from the Chinese point of view, I have no doubt. But from certain things I have heard I fear there are disadvantages as well. One day the head eunuch from the palace of one of the leading princes in Peking came to ask my wife, who was their physician, to go to see some of the women or children who were ill. It was drawing near to the New Year festival and, of course, they had their own absorbing topics of conversation in the servants' courts. I said to him:

"The Prince has a good many children, has he not?"

"Twenty-three," he answered.

"How many concubines has he?" I inquired.

"Three," he replied, "but he expects to take on two more after the holidays."

"Doesn't it cause trouble in a family for a man to have so many women about? I should think they would be jealous of each other."

"Ah," said he, with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head, "that is a topic that is difficult to discuss. Naturally if this woman sees him taking to that woman, this one is going to eat vinegar."

They do "eat vinegar," but perhaps as little of it as any people who live in the way in which they live, for the Chinese have organized their home life as nearly on a governmental basis as any people in the world.

In addition to the wife and concubines, each son when he marries brings his wife home to a parental court, and all these sisters-in-law, or daughters-in-law add so much to the complications of living, for each must have her own retinue of servants.

Young people in China are all engaged by their parents without their knowledge or consent. This was very unsatisfactory to the young people of the old regime, and it is being modified in the new. One day one of my students in discussing this matter said to me:

"Our method of getting a wife is very much better than either the old Chinese method or your foreign method."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Well," said he, "according to the old Chinese custom a man could never see his wife until she was brought to his house. But we can see the girls in public meetings, we have sisters in the girls' school, they have brothers in the college, and when we go home during vacation we can learn all about each other."

"But how do you consider it better than our method?" I persisted.

"Why, you see, when you have found the girl you want, you have to go and get her yourself, while we can send a middleman to do it for us."

I still argued that by our method we could become better acquainted with the young lady.