MARRIAGE IN CHINA.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3532, 1 August 1884, Page 2

MARRIAGE IN CHINA.

Colonel Tcheng-ki Tong, military attache to the Chinese Embassy in Paris, is telling the Western barbarians in the columns of the “Eevue des Deux Mondes ” how very inferior their civiligation is to that of China in such essential fundamentals as the position of woman and the sanctity of marriage. Another eminent Chinese mandarin, who sometimes surveys English civilisation from the pavement of Regent street, has come to a similar conclusion about an even more painful phase of the woman question ; but of him and his philosophings we may have something more to say hereafter. At present we are concerned solely with the criticisms of his military confrere, Colonel Tcheng-ki-Tong, whose paper in the current number of the “ Revue” is lively reading in good sooth. It is natural enough that he should begin by a tribute to the family life of China, which he declares resembles that of the ancient patriarchs; but we may skip all his dissertations about those matters and come to bis vindication of the Chinese mode of regulating the great question which has pre-oocupied mao and woman kind ever since the world began. Colonel Tcheng-ki-Tong sees nothing to admire in European marriages. Marriages in well ordered States should be arranged by the parents. They are emphatically affaire of the family, and should be settled b y the heads of the families concerned. The idea that two young people are qualified to decide upon their future destinies on the strength of a brief acquaintance formed in their green and April days seems to our good Oriental unspeakably absurd. They manage these things better in China than in France. As for England and our long engagements and free opportunities for acquaintance before marriage, Colonel Tcheng does not speak of them, but his principles would probably lead him to condemn them unsparingly. He has at least one point in his favor. In China, where the parents choose the bride, everyone marries : celibacy is regarded as an antisocial vice, and old bachelors and old maids are rare phenomena. All good Chinamen marry young. Bridegrooms of 16 marry ladies two years younger than themselves, and a Chinese grand* mother at the age of 30 is a more familiar sight than a spinster. The unpopularity of marriage in Franco springs, he thinks, in a great measure from the decay of ceremonial at weddings. Everyone is in a hurry to catch the train or the steamer. Everything is rushed through, and the happy pair vanish by express the moment they are married. “ That is why marriage has lost its charm.” A truly profound observation, and Chinese to the last point. There are no marriages for money in China, we are told. The great institutionjof* a dot is unknown. Marriage for money, exclaims Colonel Tcheng, is the greatest injury which you can inflict upon women. In a social system based upon the virtual purchase of a spouse, the good Chinaman is not surprised that ’ men should fear that the introduction of divorce may prove like the discharge of artillery at a house of cards. In China it is otherwise ; there, in addition to the causes of divorce recognised in Europe, marriages may be dissolved for sterility or for contumelious conduct towards mothers and fathers in law. Yet divorce is comparatively rare. “ Everybody whom I have met,” says Colonel Tcheng, “ and who has asked me about our morals, has addressed the question to me “ Do divorces occur in China ?’ The first time I was ostonished at this demand, but on reflecting I found out that indeed this is the only question which is important for them to know, When for the first time you are obliged by pain to go to the dentist you ask a friend whether it “ hurts much ?’ ” The fact of the matter is that divorces are only rare exceptions, and the strong family ties which are the outcome of the patriarchal system forbid divorce. “ Among aristocrats divorces seldom occur, from the fact that they aie such ; among the working classes because—they have no time for vain discussions, and if they quarrel they do not end by being divorced, but by being reconciled.” Womeu in China are deeply interested in avoiding a divorce, as the divorcee loses the honorable position of a wife. The Chinese lady, not having the consciousness of personality strongly developed, avoids both scandals and intrignes. The magistrate often composes quarrels instead of pronouncing a decree of divorce, and the wife has au unfailing source of consolation in tbo upbringing of her children. “She is ever a creature of hope,” says the Colonel,” and she endures patiently the injuries inflicted on her by her husband in the thought of her children.'’ If a husband surprises his wife flagrante delicto, he may kill her on the spot; but Colonel Tcheng makes fun of A. Dumas for his assertion that adulteresses in China are lifted up by an elephant and then thrown down to be crushed on the stones. "There are fewer elephants in China than in France ; there are hardly two or three at Pekin, whichone gees to see out of curiosity, ’like animals of a menagerie.” Colonel Tcheng vehemently combats the popular delusion that a Chinese woman is a crippled, waddling creature, who lives imprisoned amid her servants, her husband, and bis concubines. As far as the crippled feet are concerned, we read —" The Chinese woman walks as well as you and I—she tuns oven with her small feet,” and as to being imprisoned, she goes out, takes walks in her sedan chair, and has not even a veil to protect her from indiscreet glances.” From higher education the Chinese would gladly save their wives and daughters, they are not trained in colleges where they might acquire the knowledge of art and science, but family life forms tbo world of the Chinese woman; she aspires solely to be learned in the art of governing her family. It is she who directs tbs education of her children, she is content to live for the good of her relations, aud if heaveu has granted her a good husband, she certainly is the most fortunate of women. Colonel Tcheng has many severe things to say about the position of women in France. In China, the wife’s legal position in disposing of her goods and her children, be asserts, is

fur more privileged than that of .her | French sister. He concludes his in-1 teresting essay by some remarkable words about concubinage. In France, says he, you have mistresses ; in China we have concubines. The former is a clandestine connection, and the children are bastards; the latter has a recognised position, she is tolerated by the wife, and her children bear no social brand. The Chinese regard concubinage as the safeguard of the indissolubility of marriage; and, accepting human nature as it is, they prefer to recognise an admitted evil, to sacrificing the innocent offspring of a guilty passion. On the whole, it mnst be admitted that Colonel Tcheng-ki Tong does not make a bad fight for some of the peculiar institutions of the Celestial Empire.—“ Pall Mall Gazette.”