Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/76

72 for the gift of male offspring as Hannah of old must have prayed for Samuel. In reading the legends, biographies and anecdotes of Chinese life, one is struck with the respect paid to the mother as well as with the love rendered her by her children. In the works of the two great sages, Confucius and Mencius, love, reverence and obedience are enjoined as the due of both parents. The funeral rights of both parents are to be duly celebrated, and the ancestral tablet of the mother is always placed by that of the father and reverence is given to both.

In the history of China we read of several great empresses and empress dowagers who added to the luster of the renowned people of Han. In the ancient Book of Poetry, which is one of the great classics of the world, many women are celebrated in song for their piety and virtue, their wifely devotion, or motherly tenderness. There is a book of memoirs of distinguished women written about 125 B.C. and I know of no other book in any language at that time dealing with the greatness and goodness of women. Likewise the first book on the education of women is said to have been written in this language about two centuries later by a celebrated poetess and historian, Pan Chao, who for her learning and piety was appointed preceptress of the empress and honored by the emperor with the title of the Great Lady Tsao. Thus we see that in olden times the women of this country held a relatively high position, perhaps as high as the women in any pre-Christian civilization ever held.

But there is a somewhat darker side to be shown, when we come to speak of the modern Chinese woman as other than a mother. The childless wife of a rich man, or one who has borne him no sons, lives in fear lest he will take other wives. The presence of secondary wives, for according to law it is impossible for a man to have more than one legal wife, does not make for harmony in the household, especially if they succeed in alienating the affections of the husband. Divorce of the first wife is almost unheard of, and as the greatest crime a man can commit is to bear no sons, the practise of polygamy is defended on the highest ethical and religious grounds. The secondary wife is said to have no legal standing, but her children are considered just as legitimate as those of the first wife, to whom indeed they are said to belong. We have to picture to ourselves conditions somewhat as shown in the Biblical story of the patriarch Jacob and his wives and their handmaidens.

If the lot of the first wife is not always enviable, one can imagine that the concubines are not exactly happy. They are expected to be obedient to the headwife who rules the inner apartments, or women's quarters. In some cases they are little more than high-class servants and are often drawn from a class of society lower than the husband. Sometimes they are secured at brothels where they have captured the fancy of a rich man by their beauty and accomplishments. In some