FOR WOMEN.

Bruce Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 41, 26 May 1910, Page 3

FOR WOMEN.

A CHINESE WEDDING. AN INTERESTING CEREMONY. The traveller, "A. S. Roe," whose book "China as I Saw It," has just been published, gives an excellent account of a Chinese wedding. "Once again wo are at Ch'ong King, and we arrived just in time to bo present at a Chinese wedding. You would have been amused could you have see \ the invitation. A sheet of scarlet paper in a long scarlet and gold envelope. We were told we should answer it either by sending a present or taking one with us to the ceremony. "Wedding guests usually bring money, either cash or silver; the latter is placed on a table just inside tho door and the former flung down in a corner on the floor. No one goes empty handed to a wedding feast. "Tsin Li Lien's wedding was held m tho mission compound, as both she and the bridegroom are especial proteges ot our friends there. To the hum of voices and the sound of nasal music, the bridal chair, covered with embroidered scarlet silk, was carried in at the gates, and in due course tho curtain in front was raised and the bride, a cowed and clumsy figuro in magentapink garments of wadded silk touched up with scarlet, stepped forth, looking dazed and stupefied. "But this was quite as it should be. Unless a Chinese bride appears absolutely miserable and dejected she is thought to be unmaidenly and illbred. Her head, moreover, was weighed down by a species of high crown oi red and blue and tinsel, ending in a heavy' fringe which dangled forlornly in front of her face, hidden already by a silk veil. No wonder she tottered awkwardly into the church, as she was practically blindfolded. "An elderly female mistress acted as mistress of the ceremonies, and piloted her along until she was finally placet* by the side of the bridegroom. He was a short, spare man, with a pinched face, large lips and a msasive foiehead, and the appearance of his wedding garments, of some dark-hued silk, was entirely spoilt by a number of scarlet sashes wound round his chest and back and tied in huge clumsy bows beneath the shoulders. These sashes are a sign of popularity—the more friends you have the more sashes you are supposed to wear.

Instead of the ring ceremony a native custom was adhered to, and a small glass of wine handed first to the bridegroom, who put it to his lips, and secondly to the elderly relative, who made a feint of putting it to the bride's lips also. The performance was gone through again, only the othe 1way about, first the bride and then the bridegroom. The marriage service over the 'happy pair' walked miserably out of the church, and now, for the first time in their lives (nominally, if not in reality) they saw each other face to face, but only for a minute or so. "Two more ceremonies had still to be gone through. In an adjoining room, seated side by side at a table planted against the scroll-decorated wall, and with their backs to the assembled company, the bride and bridegroom sat disconsolately before basins of syrup, in which boiled eggs peeled of tliei<shells floated uninvitingly. The bride's veil had been removed. She sat with downcast head, looking at the eggs, which she was evidently not expected to eat, while the elderly female relative touched the bridegroom on the shoulder and urged him to make haste. He thereupon seized his chopsticks and placing one of his eggs i.i a third basin, which he handed to his monitor, he hastily swallowed down the remaining two, sprang up, saluted the guests and departed. A few minutes later the forlorn pair were standing side by side in the room in which the egg rite had been performed, with their backs to the company and their face to the wall, the master of the ceremonies called each guest by name, and each in turn stepped' in, and standing where the bride and bridegroom could see them saluted in Chinese fashion. The bridegroom returned the salute; the bride studied the ground with eyes cast down in sorrow and humility."

WHY SHOULD MEN MARRY/ "Munsey's Magazine' has an engagingly frank paper by Miss Katherine Egg'leston. From Miss Eggleston's article we make a short quotation. Why, she asks, should a man marry? Why should a bachelor give up his liberty? He can always escape to seclusion, free from the possibility of pouting lips and annoying household worries. Why should he sacrifice this independence? "Isn't it the plain, unvarnished truth that a man who contemplates changing his undeniably blessed singleness by asking to be doubled by some fluttering and uncertain female ought to bo examined for the symptoms of some mild phase of insanity? Isn't there room for a suspicion as to the quality and kind of his grey matter? "The single man enjoys to the fullest the indulgence of his small proclivitiesIf he likes riding he hires a horse, with no worry about the price. If he cares to fish he leaves the office early on Saturday, spends the next day angling, and comes blissfully homo to a house in order, no questions of morals or money pending. "Unmarried, a man has only to feel a longing and have the price. There is just one person on whom he really ought to spend his money—that is himself! Afterward—well, he has to fight with his conscience or his wife before lie can waste good cash on the foolish, unnecessary, but delightful desires which, before he married, to feel was to gratify. "My sisters, it's not a question ol right, whether all this is best for t.ie unmarried man, whether he ought to do it. He just does it before marriage and he iust does not get the chance to do it after-that is all. These privileges are not so much to have perhaps, but they are a big thing to lose when you are used to them. After they are lost they have an increasing valueone that works woe in the comfort of a man's make-up. He can never quite forget them. . "The woman who made the single K&n tbiuk 1» represented the sum to-

tal of her idoal begins to mako him over as soon as slio acquires the right and title. By a process of petting, pinching, prodding, poking, patting and pretty—or otherwise—protesting, she begins x to mako him what 110 confidently supposed he was—the man after her own heart. He must perforce be her ideal—or a disappointment. Ho would chooso the latter, as being easier, if ho had a choice, but he lias not. Every place was his if ho cared to make it so. .Enjoying a conscience reduced by careful training to an. acquiescent state, he was at home anywhere. "Acquiring a wile, lie is at home—nowhere except at home! It's the outplace where he really ought to be, when lie is not in his office, earning the wherewithal to pay for the cag<\ He even ioels bound to continue one of the bad habits he cultivated in the dreamy days of first possession—lie telephones and apologies for being late lor dinner or for dining away from home. Every hour brings its reproof that he has given up his freedom. And for what? For one of us. "It may sound jocose, all this taik about what a man givey up; but it is )io joke for him. . . . AVhat makes him pay so big a price for you? . . A home? Yes, one that costs liini a good deal moro than the one ho had, and that must bo dun to suit two persons: instead of just himself. And he gets you! Well, of course, that is something—from his prenuptial and prejudiced point of view, at least. You may repay him in many ways. But do you, just you, compensate hom for all, that lie gives up?"