THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN CHINA 73 



families, however, the wives are said to live in happiness and harmony, 

 and it has been the writer's privilege to know a Chinese Christian lady 

 who showed the greatest kindness to the wives whom her Confucian 

 husband had brought home, although his conduct had almost broken 

 her heart. 



On the whole, Chinese women are raising their voices against 

 polygamy, as are the modern educated young men. It is difficult to 

 see how a radical change can be effected very rapidly without entailing 

 great suffering on helpless women, for the organization of a govern- 

 ment may be changed quickly, but not that of domestic life. With the 

 greater education of women which will make them to a certain extent 

 economically independent, and with the example of western life, which 

 every year is making more impression on the people, we may confi- 

 dently expect the ultimate decision of this oriental people will be in 

 favor of monogamy. It is needless to say that Christianity will teach 

 this, as the missionaries are committed to an uncompromising opposi- 

 tion to all secondary marriages. 



As everywhere, perhaps, the great middle class are the happiest in 

 their domestic relations. The husband is too poor to buy other wives 

 and maintain them, so that a male child is often adopted, from the clan 

 if possible, to carry on the ancestor worship and perpetuate the name. 

 The wife among the very poor may be sold as a slave and the money 

 taken to buy another wife. If left a widow without grown sons, she 

 may be sold as a wife again by her husband's relatives before the grass 

 has grown green on his grave. Nowadays, there is a law to prevent a 

 woman's being sold against her will, but often among the poor there is 

 no alternative. 



But the burden of all China's poverty seems to me to rest most 

 heavily on the young girl. As an infant, if there are too many mouths 

 to feed, her life is snuffed out in its first hours. In times of poverty 

 and stress of famine, the first resort is to sell the little girls. If not 

 as a wife, then as a slave or concubine. It does not require much 

 imagination to picture what a little slave girl may suffer if her owners 

 are unkind and she is sold about from one to another. On the other 

 hand, she may come into a good family and occupy a useful and hon- 

 orable position. There is a law that no maid slave shall be denied the 

 right of marriage, and if she is attractive it may be to one of the men 

 of the family. If the little girl is sold as a child wife, her lot may be 

 very unhappy, for her mother-in-law is likely to make her the drudge 

 of the family, and her husband, if he feels any affection, is never sup- 

 posed to interfere in her behalf, as that only makes matters worse. 

 The birth of a son is the great alleviating factor, for then a woman has 

 performed the chief function in life. 



One is not to suppose that the evils here mentioned, such as infanti- 

 cide and girl slavery, denote any particular cruelty of nature on the 



