COCHINCHINA. 305 
witnesses, is considered as a dissolution of their former com- 
pact, and the act of separation. 
In China the men have sedulously and successfully incul- 
cated the doctrine, that a well-bred woman should never be 
seen abroad ; that she should confine herself constantly to her 
own apartments ; that in the presence of even her nearest 
male relations she should not expose her neck and her hands, 
to prevent which her gown is buttoned up close to the chin, 
and its sleeves hang down below the knee : and so craftily 
have they contrived their precepts to operate, that the silly 
women have actually been prevailed on to consider a physical 
defect which confines them to the house as a fashionable 
accomplishment. Here, in this respect, there is a total dif- 
ference with regard to the sex. So far from the Cochin- 
chinese women being deprived of the free use of their limbs 
or their liberty, they have the enjoyment of both to the fullest 
extent. It certainly was not in Cochinchina where Eudoxus, 
in his travels, is said to have observed the feet of the women 
to be so small, that they might with propriety be distinguished 
by the name of the " Ostrich-footed fcEminis plantas adeo 
parvus ut Strutliopodes appellentur ; as, by their bustling 
about ^vith. naked feet, they become unusually large and 
spreading ; but the name might aptly enough be apphed 
to the feet of the Chinese ladies, whose undefined and lumpish 
form is not unlike the foot of the ostrich. 
Extremes often approximate. The same cause which in 
China has operated this total seclusion of the sex from so- 
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