DIVORCE IN CHINA.

Evening Star, Issue 14575, 25 May 1911, Page 8

DIVORCE IN CHINA.

Thei'c is no suffrage agitation among Chinese women. They arc too busy training themselves thoroughly to be efficient. When they are efficient there will he no question of their being denied any privilege for which tbey have shown themselves worthy. In the meantime they are concentrating entirely on education and specialised training, always keeping in mind the aim of working with men, not trying to oust them. Dr Yamci Kin, the first Chinese woman doctor, gives a most interesting picture of the Chinese woman, of which (writes a representative of the ' Sheffield Daily Telegraph ') these opinions are part. She contrasts the methods of the Chinese woman with those of England, and it is not always to our advantage; but she admits that in China men are always ready to do things for women. The very Woman's Hospital of which Dr Kin-is the head was founded by men.

—Social Position of Chinese Women.— It is interesting to compare the social and civil position of Chinese women with that of English women. They have no direct rights of property, but the mother of the family is the object of religious reverence through her motherhood, and in practice nothing is done regarding property without her sanction. Also, they have no right of divorce. They can be divorced for more or less the same reasons that an Englishman can divorce his wife, and the system of concubinage is followed as in spiritual times; but the wife cannot divorce her husband at all. However, if she lias good and sufficient cause, she may leave hiin, and go homo to her parents. When this is done, and it is recognised that she has been really wronged, the man receives from his neighbors and society in general the exact treatment which is here meted out to the woman who has boon divorced. He is ostracised, and finds it exceedingly difficult to K f, t another wife. In a country «here the family is recognised as the central force, it is natural that the women are domestic in every fibre. But this fact, as some are realising even in the "enlightened "' West, does not prevent the feminine mind from being capable of the highest

education. Consequently, without any thought of departing from the traditional vocations of wife and mother, Chinese women are emerging from their homes in various social ways. A few women's clnhs have been tentatively started, but the movement has not definitclv "caught hold" yet. In TienTsin (hero is a club for English-speak-ing women, but these, the highly trained of the community, are too busy to have much time for club life. —Dr Kin and the Harem Skirt.— On that burning'question of the day, the harem skirt, l)r Kin has some very interesting evidence to produce. In .South China all the women wear silken

ts, over which goes the short tunic which has boon so fashionable here for opera coats during the last few years, and a skirt formed of two wide embroidered panels, pirated at the sides, and slightly overlapping at hack and front. This costume provides all the freedom of trousers with all the grace of skirts. In North China, whose costume Dr Kin wears here as elsewhere, the dress consists of silken trousers, drawn in closely round the ankles just as a man's riding breeches are drawn in round the knee, with a loose silken pelisse or overcoat, which comes to the top of the feet among the women of the educated classes, and stops short halfway between knee and ankle for the women who have physical labor to do, and require greater freedom.

I)r Kin herself is a striking personality. In talking with her one is struck by the clarity and individuality of her points of view ; there is nothing aggressive about her, but nothing yielding when l she is convinced of a tiling. She has that quiet, pleasant determination of manner which one only finds in men and women who are used to responsible posts. She is quite a young woman, and looks younger even than she is, for she has a boy of fd'f-ecn. Her record of work done is very high ; the Tien-Tsin hospital is only an outward sign. Hall a dozen other Chinese ladies are studying medicine in Europe and Amoien, and the school of nursing and midwifery at the hospital is doing much to meet the urgent demand tor skilled care in China. All this is due to Dr Kin; but it is also due to the attitude of the Chinese man to the Chinese woman, to his zeal for her physical and mental advancement, and his generous recognition of her intellectual claims.