6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



license or a public ceremony is required. It is left to the individual to 

 make his matrimonial choice within the limits provided by law, and 

 then to celebrate his nupitals in his own way. Should he mistake his 

 rights and marry within one of the prohibited degrees he is subject to 

 punishment. The same attitude is maintained towards divorce. The 

 code specifies the grounds for such a separation, enumerating besides 

 those recognized by us, such delinquencies as " talkativeness," " envious 

 and suspicious temper," " disregard of the husband's parents." Upon 

 any of these the husband may give his wife a bill of divorce. Should he, 

 however, perchance misjudge his own case, he is subject to eighty 

 blows of the bamboo. 



An interesting feature of the Chinese ethical system which the code 

 brings into prominence is the idea of mutual responsibility. It is pro- 

 vided that " when the parties to an offense are members of one family, 

 the senior and chief member of that family shall alone be punishable; 

 but if he be upwards of eighty years of age, or totally disabled by his in- 

 firmities, the punishment shall fall upon the next in succession," By 

 virtue of this principle, the burden of criminal responsibility has been 

 known to descend from father to son for generations while a litigation 

 was taking its leisurely way through the courts to the Board of Punish- 

 ments in Peking, and finally to the Emperor, until in the end the 

 penalty fell upon some person born long after the event. Of the same 

 character is the mutual responsibility of persons residing in the same 

 neighborhood. A typical case is where a parricide having been com- 

 mitted, all the houses in the vicinity are demolished, the theory being 

 that the residents have been culpable in failing to exert a better moral 

 influence over the criminal. 



A feature of Chinese society which makes for democracy is the 

 almost total absence of such a thing as a hereditary nobility. For over 

 two thousand years the descendants of Confucius have been honored 

 with the title of " Dukes of Kung," and in the same manner the 

 descendants of the famous sea-fighter Koxinga have been distinguished 

 with a hereditary title. But with these exceptions, and with the 

 exception of the imperial family, the only aristocracy recognized gener- 

 ally in China is based on learning, and this is open to the humblest and 

 most powerful upon like terms. The tourist in the provincial capitals 

 is usually shown the examination halls — rows upon rows of tile-roofed 

 sheds divided into cells not more than six feet square. Here every 

 three years the candidates for literary degrees gather from all parts 

 of the province. 



Until recently the Chinese classics have been the subject of all 

 examinations. The chancellors selected at random a phrase from the 

 works of some ancient moralist which the students were required to 

 expand into an essay framed on the stilted canons of Chinese literary 



