662 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE WOMEN OF CHINA. 



The idea obtains that in China the position of 

 women is ahogether inferior to that of European 

 women, but apparently this is not ahogether the 

 case. Writing m the Nineteenth, Century for 

 November, Lady Blake points out certain 

 respects in which the Chinese lady has the 

 advantage. 



WHERE THE CHINESE WOMAN SCORES. 



The Chinese lady's power over her children is 

 greater than that of the English lady. When 

 her husband dies she becomes the acknowledged 

 head of the family. A Chinese son, says Lady 

 Blake, would be shocked at the idea of turning 

 his mother out of her house and relegating her 

 to an insignificant " dower-house," while he and 

 his wife took possession of what had been his 

 mother's home probably for years. Such a pro- 

 ceeding would be called " unfilial," a dreaded 

 term of infamy. The wife of an official has the 

 right to assume all the insignia of her husband's 

 rank. In some respects Chinese women of the 

 working classes also have a better time of it 

 than women of similar social status in England. 

 To strike or kick a woman would, we are told, 

 be regarded as an act of the utmost impropriety 

 by any self-respecting Chinaman. 



MARRIAGE. 



As to marriage, girls are not given much 

 choice in the selection of the future husband, but 

 the same holds good of the man in the choice of 

 his bride. Marriages are made by match- 

 makers, but mercenary ends are not the only 

 considerations taken into account. The first 

 essential is that the man's surname be different 

 from that of the bride, for all of the same name 

 are regarded in some measure as one family. 

 As long as her parents-in-law are alive, the son's 

 wife is subordinate to them, and the usually 

 extreme youth of the bride almost makes resi- 

 dence with mo.re experienced relatives a neces- 

 sity. There is only one legal wife in China, but 

 the necessities of ancestral worship have led to 

 the habit of there being one or more secondary 

 wives. In some cases these occupy separate 

 houses, but when all live in the same house the 

 harmony of the household is not always in- 

 creased. The legal wife may be divorced on 

 seven counts, but divorce does not appear to be 

 very common. Should the husband trv to dis- 

 card his wife, and she could prove there was no 

 reason for a divorce, he would not only have 

 to take her back, but would be liable to be 

 punished. 



HOME LIFE. 



The Chinese are described as most affectionate 

 parents. \ child's education is supposed to be 



pre-natal in its influence. After its birth the 

 first lessons impressed on its mind are to eat 

 with the right hand, to be deferential in manner, 

 and unselfish in conduct. School education 

 begins at the age of eight. The girls are 

 brought up to regard marriage as their goal in 

 life. The custom of destroying infant girls 

 occurs only among the very poor, who cannot 

 furnish their daughters with the necessary mar- 

 riage dowry. Chinese women rarely leave the 

 house except in a closed sedan chair, but their 

 life is varied by the recurrjence of festivals. Yet 

 retiring and apparently timid Chinese women, 

 cramped by convention, have pushed past all 

 obstacles and frequently displayed military 

 prowess. There is nothing in the status of 

 women in China to prevent them taking an 

 active part in public affairs. The seclusion in 

 which they live is merely a matter of custom. 



WOMEN IN GREEK TRAGEDY. 



An interesting article by Professor Gilbert 

 Murray, entitled " What English Poetry May 

 Still Learn from Greek," appears in the AtJantic 

 Monthly for November. 



In reference to the women in Greek tragedy 

 he writes : — 



A remark of Coleridge is rather curious to read at the 

 present day : " The Greeks, except perhaps Homer, seem 

 to have had no way of making their women interesting 

 but by unsexing them, as in the tragic Medea, Eleclra, 

 etc." Here I tiiink there is little doubt that we have 

 simply moved beyond Coleridge, and thereby come nearer 

 the Creeks. Vet his- words are, perhaps, in their literal 

 sense true. 



The romantic heroines of Coleridge's day needed a 

 good deal of " unsexing " before they stood fairly on 

 their feet as human beings, with real minds and real 

 characters. The romantic fiction of a generation or two 

 ago couUl never look at its heroines except through a 

 roseate mist of emotion. Greek tragedy saw its women 

 straight ; or, at most, saw them through a mist of religion, 

 not through a mist of gallantry or sentimental romance. 



When iieople are accustomed, as Coleridge was, to that 

 atmosphere, it is pitiful to see how chill and raw they 

 feel when they are taken out of it. As a matter of fact, 

 Greek tragedy, as a whole, spends a great deal more study 

 and sympathy upon its women than its men, and I should 

 have thought that, in the ordinary sense of the word, it 

 was hard to speak of Antigone and Deianira and Medea, 

 hard to speak of Andromache and Hecuba in the Troades, 

 or even of Clytemnestra arid I'.lectra, as " unsexed " 

 creatures. 



That Bergson is an idealist and a personalist 

 is the position taken up by Professor Mary 

 Calkins in the Philosophical Reviciv for 

 November. As she interprets it, " Bergson 's 

 view of Nature is allied with Leibniz's, Fech- 

 ner's, and Ward's : he is, in technical terms, 

 a pluralistic personalist." She grants, however, 

 that more than one of his statement? lends 

 itself to a numerical inonistic interpretation. 



