114 EXOGAMY IN CHINA 



in his "Totemism and Exogamy," published in 1910. 

 has not barred the way to further enquiry. 



Why did primitive man shun his hearth-mate as a 

 wife ? Was it in obedience to the consciously imposed 

 restriction of some enlightened leader of a horde, or 

 for some other considered reason of policy or con- 

 venience? or was it in obedience to instinct, that is 

 to say race-memory? Can, perhaps, the answer to the 

 riddle be found, or traced, in the records and usages of 

 China? 



This evening, during the short time available, I 

 ask you to= go with me back towards the beginning of 

 Chinese life, down one of the ways which, I thought, 

 might lead to the heart of the maze. 



cimmtive Mr ' E " H ' Parker ' late of H - M - Consular Service 



chmcse.Famiiy in China, Professor of Chinese in Victoria University, 

 Law. p. 1. Manchester, in his book, "Comparative Chinese Family 



Law," says, "he is inclined to think it improbable 

 that the Chinese have added to, or more than super- 

 ficially changed any of their fundamental social prin- 

 ciples since the compilation of the Ritual of Chou by 

 Chou Kung, and that of the 'Record of Rites,' " which, 

 while he doubts the authorship and dates assigned to 

 them, he says, "most probably reduced to a definite 

 code the social principles of the Chinese, whilst blend- 

 ing them with those of the then ruling dynasty, and 

 to this day continue to exercise a profound influence 

 upon the Chinese mind." 



Whether these complications were made in the 

 twelfth and seventh centuries B.C. respectively, or 

 later as Parker thinks, is immaterial in their considera- 

 tion as a written record of what the Chinese ever since 

 these books were studied as classics have thought to 

 have been at one time, and should be now, the pattern 

 of social order and right living. 



The Ritual of Chow supposed to have been corn- 

 piled by the Great Duke of Chow, in the twelfth 

 century B.C., and the Record of Rites, attributed to 

 Confucius himself (sixth-fifth centuries B.C.), record 

 the then manners of the time and the traditions of an 

 earlier age ; the considered deductions therefrom of the 

 authors or compilers — whoever they may have been — 

 as to what should be — "the rules of propriety." 



The law considered by Parker is primarily that to 

 be found in the Lii Li and the binding and observed 

 customs of the present day. Even of that law and 

 custom he says: "we are carried back to a position 



