CHINESE WOMEN.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3375, 28 January 1884, Page 2

CHINESE WOMEN.

A young girl walking in the street must not turn her head round, nor at home is she to glance slyly at visitors. She is to remember, moreover that girls who are always laughing and talking are not esteemed, and that virtuous women have been honored from the earliest times. The philosopher Mendez grieved when he saw his mother break her shuttle ; the woman Tsoun threw herself on a sword in order to save her husband's life ; the mother of Ao, being so poor that she could not buy writting materials, taught her son to read by tracing characters in the sand. Women should be able to read, write, and use the counting machine, so as to be in a position to direct a household. They should read books of piety, and stories of morality in action, while avoiding love-poetry, songs, and anecdotes. Women should be reserved, and they are cruelly enjoined never to occupy themselves with other people’s affairs. Men - ought never to talk of domestic matters, while women should never talk of anything else. When a visitor is in the drawing-room, the lady of the house should not be heard raising her voice in the kitchen. Women are not to paint their faces and wear striking colors, for the insufficient reason that if they do men will look at them. Young women, as well as young men, are to be dutiful to their parents and always in a good humor, even when their parents are not. They are to ask them whether .they are hot or whether they are cold ; to take them food and drink, and to fnrnish them with new boots and shoes. When a young girl is grown up and married to an honest man she must not forget her parents, and once or twice a year she must ask the permission of her husband to go and see them. “From the highest antiquity to the present day the .rule in marriage has been that the husband commands and the wife obeys.” Virtue for a wife consists in having an equal temper and to arrive at this much must be supported. “If the first wife has not the happiness to give her husband a male child, he chooses a person he loves in order to have by her a son who will continue his line. It is necessary under these circumstances.” says the ‘ Manual,’ not to give way to jealousy, but to live together on friendly terms in the same house. At present great dissensions take place between first and second wives. Out of a hundred first wives you will scarcely find one or two of a sweet and affable disposition. 1 have taken great pains,” adds the author, “ in writing this paragraph. Do not read it thoughtlessly.” If, however, he had been more thoughtful himself, it might have occurred to him that the want of sweetness and affability which he deplores in supplanted “ first wives ” is the result less of character than of circumstances, and that it would show itself equally in second wives if they in their turn were to be replaced.