214 A NATURALIST IN WESTERN CHINA 



barren wives either demanded or sanctioned by it. Explain it 

 as we may, the fact remains that Thibetan women are to-day, 

 as they seem to have been in the time of Marco Polo, the most 

 immodest of their sex, and the Thibetan men strangely in- 

 different about matters which other races demand as essentials. 



" All outside work is done by the women, who represent the 

 coarser element of Thibetan society, and their language is often 

 filthy in the extreme. The domestic arrangements make no 

 provision for privacy. Men and women must eat, live, and sleep 

 perforce in the same apartment, and there is no effort on the 

 part of the male to shield the female from conditions which are 

 inimical to virtue. 



" The morality of the Thibetans has made such a system 

 possible. This will not be denied by any one who knows them 

 even slightly ; but it will sound strange to many when I say 

 that the climatic and political conditions arc such that the 

 reformer is puzzled to think of anything to offer as a sub- 

 stitute ! To the untutored Thibetan mind it must seem 

 absolutely necessary. Undoubtedly the high altitudes are 

 unfavourable to women. The Thibetan views woman very 

 much as he does an animal, i.e. she can do so much work. 

 Living and working at 12,000 feet altitude and upwards requires 

 the strongest material. Woman very imperfectly fulfils these 

 requirements, and maternity and nursing, apart from unfitting 

 her for work, would be well-nigh useless, since infant mortality 

 would be abnormally high. On the relatively thinly populated 

 plateaux the conditions obtaining are emphatically against 

 woman being wanted in numbers. Here robbing and escaping 

 from robbers is the normal condition. It will be evident 

 at once that family duties are not only inconvenient, but 

 interfere with the woman's efficiency personally, and at the 

 same time misdirect the energies of the male portion of the 

 community. 



" The nomad is a herdsman, continually moving to and fro 

 with his flocks and belongings. The woman, and the centre 

 she forms, would impair the necessary freedom of movement ; 

 it would also follow that she and her belongings would often be 

 unprotected for long periods. Polyandry, by not encouraging 

 permanent settlements and at the same time being the best 



