The marriage contract is a mere bargain. A man buys his wife, and may extend his purchases as far as he pleases, the first bought being usually the chief. A simple agreement before witnesses seals the union, which can be dissolved with equal facility, the only requisite in Cochin China being to break a chopstick or porcupine quill in presence of a third person. A man has also the privilege of selling his inferior wives.
The unmarried women are almost universally unchaste, and do not incur infamy or lose the chance of marriage by prost.i.tuting themselves. Custom allows a father to yield his daughter to any visitor he may wish to honor, or to hire her for a stipulated price to any one desirous of her company, and she has no power to resist the arrangement, although she can not be married against her will.
A wife is considered sacred, more as the property of her husband than from respect to her chast.i.ty. The theory of the law is, that a man"s harem can not be invaded, even by the king himself; but Asiatic absolutism was never famed for its adherence to law when personal interest was in the other scale, and there is but little exception in this case.
Adultery is punished in Siam by fine, and in Cochin China by death. In Burmah executions of females are very rare, but they are disciplined with the aid of the bamboo, husbands sometimes flogging their wives in the open streets.
Although professed prost.i.tutes exist in large numbers throughout the region, still there are not so many as might be expected, because no single woman is required to be chaste. Little is known of their habits, peculiarities, or position, except that in Siam they are incapacitated from giving evidence before a justice. This restriction does not seem to arise from a consideration of their immorality, but from local prejudices, and the disability under which they labor is also extended to braziers and blacksmiths.
CELEBES.
Leaving the Asiatic Continent for a short time, we will now examine the condition of the inhabitants of Celebes. This island is noticed here rather than with Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, which are included in the list of barbarous nations, because it enjoys a considerable degree of civilization, and in its political and social state is far in advance of other countries of the Indian Archipelago. The idea of freedom is recognized in its public system, and its inst.i.tutions have a.s.sumed a republican form.
Women are not excluded from their share in public business; and though their influence is usually indirect, their counsel is sought by the men on all important occasions. In Wajo, they are not only elected to the throne, or, rather, the presidential chair, but also often fill the great offices of state. Four out of the six councilors are frequently females.
Their domestic condition, to some extent, corresponds with their political privileges. The wife has the uncontrolled management of her household, eating with her husband, and mingling freely with the other s.e.x on public or festival occasions. The women ride about, transact business, and even visit foreigners as they please, and their chast.i.ty is better guarded by the sense of honor and the pride of virtue, than by the jealousy of husbands or the surveillance of parents.
This is the bright side of the picture. For the reverse, we find the barbarian practice of polygamy, which is universally permitted, under certain restrictions. The most important of these is that two wives seldom inhabit the same house; each has usually a separate dwelling. The men can easily procure a divorce, and, if the wish to separate is mutual, nothing remains but to do so as quickly as possible. If the woman alone desires to be released from the matrimonial bond, she must produce a reasonable ground of complaint. Concubinage is rarely practiced, although some man may take a woman of inferior rank as a companion until he can marry a girl whose birth equals his own.
The morals of both men and women are superior to those of any other race in eastern or western Asia. Prost.i.tution is all but unknown. The dancing girls are generally admitted to be of easy virtue, but even they preserve decorum in their manners, and dress with great decency, although their public performances are of a lascivious nature.
CHINA.
In the immense empire of China a general uniformity of manners is observable, for its civilization has been cast in a mould fashioned by despotism, and the iron discipline of its government forces all to yield.
There is great reason to believe that prost.i.tution forms no exception to the rule. We know that a remarkable system exists, that frail women abound in the Celestial Empire, and form a distinct cla.s.s. We know something of the manner in which they live, and how or by whom they are encouraged, but no traveler has as yet given any lucid account of the vice and its connections, and our comparatively meagre knowledge is drawn from a multiplicity of sources.
The general condition of the female s.e.x in China is inferior to the male, and the precepts and examples of Confucius have taught the people that the former were created for the convenience of the latter. Feminine virtue is severely guarded by the law; not for the sake of virtue, but for the well-being of the state and the interest of the men. But national morality, inculcated by codes, essays, and poems, is, in fact, a dead letter, for the Chinese rank among the most immoral people on the earth.
The inferiority of women is recognized in their politics, which embrace the spirit of the Salic law. The throne can be occupied only by a man, and an illegitimate son is more respected than a legitimate daughter.
The paternal government of China has not failed to legislate on the subject of marriage. In this contract the inclinations of the parties themselves are practically ignored; parental authority is supreme, and it is not unusual for weddings to take place between persons who have never seen each other before the union. Matchmaking is followed as a profession by some old women, who are remunerated when they succeed. When two families commence a negotiation of this kind, all particulars are required to be fully explained on both sides, so that no deceit can be practiced.
The engagement is then drawn, and the amount of presents agreed on. This contract is irrevocable. If the friends of the girl desire to break off the match, the one who had authority to dispose of her receives fifty strokes of the bamboo, and the marriage proceeds. If the bridegroom, or the friend who controls him is dissatisfied, he receives the same punishment, and must fulfill his engagement. If either of the parties is incontinent after betrothal, the crime is punished as adultery. If any deceit has been practiced, and either person has falsely represented the party about to be married, the offender is severely punished, and the marriage is void, even if completed. In spite of all precautions, such instances sometimes occur. It must be noticed that, though betrothal binds a woman positively to her future husband, yet he can not force her from her friends before the stipulated time has expired, nor can they retain her beyond the a.s.signed day.
Polygamy is allowed under certain restrictions. The first wife is usually chosen from a family equal in station to that of the husband, and acquires all the rights and privileges which belong to a chief wife in any Asiatic country. The man may then take as many more women as he can afford to keep, but these are inferior in rank to the first married, although the children have a contingent claim to the inheritance. This position, if it brings no positive honor, brings little shame. It is sanctioned by usage, but was originally condemned by strict moralists, who designated the arrangement by a word compounded of _crime_ and _woman_. It is a position which only a poor or humble woman will consent to occupy. A national proverb says, "It is more honorable to be the wife of a poor man than the concubine of an emperor." The social rule which makes all subsequent wives subordinate to the one first married may probably have had some effect in forming this opinion.
The Chinese system is rigid as to the degrees of consanguinity between which marriage may be contracted. In ancient times the reverse of this seems to have been the rule, and tradition says that much immorality was the result. The law now prohibits all unions between persons of the same family name, and is attended with some inconvenience, because the number of proper names is small. If such a marriage is contracted, it is declared void, and the parties are punished by blows and a fine. If the couple are previously related by marriage within four degrees, the union is declared incestuous, and the offenders are punished with the bamboo, or, in extreme cases, by strangling or decapitation.
Not only are the degrees of relationship definitely specified, but the union of cla.s.ses is under restriction. An officer of government must not marry into a family under his jurisdiction, or, if he does, is subject to a heavy punishment; the same being accorded to the girl"s relations if they have voluntarily aided him, but they are exempt if their submission was the result of his authority. To marry a woman absconding from justice is prohibited. To forcibly wed a freeman"s daughter subjects the offender to strangulation. An officer of government, or any hereditary functionary, who marries a woman of a disreputable cla.s.s, receives sixty strokes of the bamboo, and the same _modic.u.m_ awaits any priest who marries at all, he being also expelled from his order. Slaves and free persons are forbidden to intermarry. Those who connive at an illegal union are considered criminals, and punished accordingly.
According to Chinese law, any one of seven specified causes are allowed to justify divorce, namely, barrenness, lasciviousness, disregard of the husband"s parents, talkativeness (!), thievish propensities, an envious, suspicious temper, or inveterate infirmity. Against these the woman has three pleas, any one of which, if substantiated, will annul the husband"s application. They are, that she has mourned three years for her husband"s family; that the family has become rich, having been poor at the time of marriage; or, that she has no father or mother living to receive her.
These are useless when she has committed adultery, in which case her husband is positively forbidden to retain her, but under other circ.u.mstances they present a check to his caprice. In cases of adultery, a man may kill both his wife and her paramour if he detect them and execute his vengeance forthwith, but he must not put her to death for any other crime. In the same connection may be mentioned a law denouncing severe penalties on any man who lends his wife or daughter. This is not an obsolete enactment against an unknown offense, for instances do sometimes occur of poor men selling their wives as concubines to their richer neighbors, while others prost.i.tute them for gain.
From this view of the social condition of women and the laws of marriage, it is necessary to pa.s.s to a subject which has given China an unenviable notoriety, namely, the custom of infanticide. Two causes appear to have encouraged this practice: the poverty of the lower cla.s.ses, and the severity of the laws respecting illicit s.e.xual intercourse. The former is the princ.i.p.al cause. When the parents are so indigent as to have no hope of maintaining their children, the daughters are murdered, for a son can earn his living in a few years, and a.s.sist his parents in addition. Among this cla.s.s the birth of a female is viewed as a calamity. Several methods are adopted to destroy the child. It may be drowned in warm water, its throat may be pinched, a wet cloth may be pressed over its mouth, it may be choked with rice, or it may be buried alive.
When Mr. Smith, a missionary, was in the suburbs of Canton in 1844, he made many inquiries as to the extent of infanticide. A native a.s.sured him that, within a circle of ten miles" radius, the children killed each year _would not exceed five hundred_. In Fokien province the crime was more general, and at a place called Kea King Chow there were computed to be from five to six hundred cases every month. A foundling hospital at Canton was named as preventing much of the crime, but it seems to have received only five hundred infants yearly; but a very small proportion of the births. The Chinese generally confess that infanticide is practiced throughout the empire, and is regarded as an innocent and proper expedient for lightening the pressure of poverty. It is not wholly confined to the poor; the rich resort to it to conceal their amours. The laws punish illicit intercourse with from seventy to one hundred strokes of the bamboo. If a child is born, its support devolves upon the father; but in cases where the connection has been concealed, this evidence is usually destroyed.
Prost.i.tution prevails to a prodigious extent. "Seduction and adultery,"
says Williams, in his Survey of the Chinese Empire, "are comparatively infrequent, but brothels and their inmates are found every where, on land and water. One danger attending young girls walking alone is that they will be stolen for incarceration in these gates of h.e.l.l." This allusion may be explained by the fact that in 1832 there were from eight to ten thousand prost.i.tutes in and near Canton, of whom the greater portion had been stolen while children, and regularly trained for this life. Many kidnappers gained a living by stealing young girls and selling them to the brothels, and in times of want parents have been known to lead their daughters through the streets and offer them for sale. A recent visitor to Canton describes the sale of children as an every-day affair, which is looked upon as a simple mercantile transaction. Some are disposed of for concubines, but others are deliberately bartered to be brought up as prost.i.tutes, and are transferred at once to the brothels.
Of Chinese houses of prost.i.tution we have no particular description, but one singular feature is the brothel junks, which are moored in conspicuous stations on the Pearl River, and are distinguished by their superior decorations. Many of them are called "Flower Boats," and form whole avenues in the floating suburbs of Canton. The women lead a life of reckless extravagance, plunging into all the excitements which are offered by their mode of life to release themselves from _ennui_ or reflection.
Diseases are very prevalent among them, and visitors suffer severely for their temporary pleasures. They are usually congregated in troops, under the government of a man who is answerable for their conduct, or for any violation of public peace or decency. The last can scarcely be considered an offense, for the Chinese make a display of their visits to brothels.
Persons pa.s.s to and from the Flower Boats without any attempt at concealment, and rich men sometimes make up a party, send to one of the junks, retain as many women as they wish, and collectively pa.s.s the time in debauch and licentiousness.
This is not the only form prost.i.tution a.s.sumes in China. Women of the poorer cla.s.ses, whose friends are not able to provide for them, are lodged in prison under the care of female warders, and these employ their prisoners in prost.i.tution for their benefit. An incident which occurred at Shenshee a few years since reveals another phase. A young widow resided there with her mother-in-law, both being supported by the prost.i.tution of the former. Her charms failed, she was deserted by her visitors, and starvation seemed inevitable. The old woman would not recognize her daughter"s inability to support her, and flogged her. The prost.i.tute, in attempting self-defense, killed her mother. She was convicted of the crime, but, as the victim had acted illegally in endeavoring to force her to prost.i.tution, the sentence of the court, which had ordered her to be hewn to pieces, was commuted into decapitation.
As before remarked, it is much to be regretted that we have not more reliable information of the vice, which is acknowledged to be all but universal in China.[370]
j.a.pAN.
The recent connection established by American enterprise with the semi-fabulous empire of j.a.pan (the Zipangi of Columbus) makes the inst.i.tutions of that country more than usually interesting. From the earliest accounts of the Dutch and Jesuit writers to the present time, we know that the j.a.panese, like the Chinese, have attained a high degree of civilization, and among both, the vices which, in the present experience of mankind, seem the accompaniments of that improvement, have been developed in a remarkable degree.
Among savage tribes female honor is held in very little esteem; the woman is merely property. As we advance in the scale of intelligence they take higher grade, and virtue and modesty are more cherished. Our information concerning j.a.pan is, even yet, comparatively limited, but no circ.u.mstance of its ordinary life seems more clear than that female virtue among the higher cla.s.ses is much valued, and that, at the same time, there is an enormous extent of public prost.i.tution, in which men of all ranks indulge.
The Jesuit Charleroix, Koempfer, Adams, and some Dutch writers, have given accounts of j.a.pan from the sixteenth century to the present time. Like most Oriental nations, the manners and habits of the j.a.panese have undergone so little change, that the practices of a century ago are the fashions of to-day. The most recent traveler (for those who composed Commodore Perry"s expedition can hardly be said to come under that denomination) is Captain Golownin, and he had opportunities for close observation not equaled since the times of the early writers. He was commander of the Russian sloop-of-war Diana, and visited the j.a.panese empire in 1811. Having paid a visit of ceremony ash.o.r.e, he was induced, by the duplicity of the j.a.panese, who are adepts in all the political arts of lying and hypocrisy, to trust himself in their hands a second time without arms or escort. The j.a.panese had an old grudge to settle with the Russians on account of injuries done them by certain individuals of that nation, and took the opportunity of rendering a _quid pro quo_ by entrapping the unlucky Golownin, who was thus made prisoner. He was treated at first with much indignity and severity; afterward with more indulgence, but did not regain his liberty for upward of two years.
The j.a.panese can marry only one wife, but have as many concubines as they please. The precise value of the distinction is not readily appreciated, as the concubine does not lose caste by her position. There are great facilities of divorce, and without cause shown; but a gentleman who exercises this privilege loses his character as a husband, and can only procure another wife or additional concubines by paying a large price to his father-in-law. Adultery is punished with death, either by law or at the hands of the husband. j.a.panese husbands are represented as jealous, and as keeping their wives and women in strict seclusion. This strictness is relaxed in the cases of the middle and poorer cla.s.ses, the necessities of the household removing those artificial obligations imposed on the higher ranks by pride or fashion. But even the women of the humbler ranks do not converse with, or even speak to strangers, unless in the presence of their husbands.
An anecdote is told in Adams"s narrative which somewhat resembles that of Lucretia in Roman history, and which would imply great self-respect among the high caste of j.a.panese ladies. A n.o.bleman made dishonorable advances toward a lady of rank during her husband"s absence on a journey, and, notwithstanding a repulse from her, seized an opportunity to gratify his pa.s.sion by violence. On the husband"s return the wife treated him with reserve, and declined any explanation of her singular conduct, which, however, she promised to afford at a banquet to be given the following day. Accordingly, during the feast, at which the author of the outrage was present, when the guests had satisfied their appet.i.tes, the lady made her appearance. She told her husband and his friends what had happened, denounced herself as unworthy to live, received the caresses of her husband and relations, by whom, however, she refused to be comforted, and then leaped from the parapet of the house, and so killed herself.
Meanwhile the criminal had escaped; but when the horror-stricken guests rushed out to pick up the devoted wife, they found the n.o.bleman weltering in his own blood at her side. He had ripped himself up, the ordinary way of committing suicide in j.a.pan.
The j.a.panese brothels are of great splendor, and very numerously frequented, containing thirty, forty, fifty, or even a larger number of women. Every place of public entertainment or refreshment maintains prost.i.tutes as a part of the establishment. On stopping at a tavern, it is customary for the courtesans of the house to come out, painted and bedizened, and set forth the claims of their house to the traveler"s patronage, exhibiting themselves as one of the items of the bill of fare.
No village, however insignificant, is without one or more houses of ill fame, and there are villages on much-frequented roads, in popular districts, the whole of whose female inhabitants are prost.i.tutes. Two in particular, Agasaki and Goy, are thus described by Koempfer. The females are designated _Keise_, which literally signifies a castle turned upside down. It is uncertain whether the government licenses these places, or merely tolerates them. The former is the more probable, when it is considered that in their mythology they have a G.o.ddess a.n.a.logous to the Corinthian Venus, in whose worship prost.i.tution is a recognized part of the ceremony. Attached to the temple of this impure deity are a large number of priestesses, six hundred or upward, who all prost.i.tute themselves to the worshipers. Notwithstanding this large force, there are constant offers to recruit the ranks by young girls.
The extent of this vice, which is universal throughout the empire, would cause it to be taken as a regular inst.i.tution of j.a.pan. Nothing is done _sub rosa_. Courtesans form part of a pleasure party; parents sell their children to brothel-keepers, or apprentice them for a time to such places, and at the expiration of their term they resume (it is said, but this is doubtful) their places in society without any stain on their reputations.
Husbands make bargains for the transfer of their wives" charms, which is a legitimate charge over and above the gratuity to be accorded to the lady.
Koempfer, in describing the prost.i.tute quarter of Nagasaki, says it consists of very handsome houses. The poor people sell their prettiest daughters to the brothel-keepers, who bring the girls up with various accomplishments. The price of these women is regulated by law, and many of the prost.i.tutes are enabled to abandon their calling, for their good education and agreeable manners procure them husbands, and in their married condition they are fully as good as others.
In his lifetime the brothel-keeper is said by some writers to rank with the skinner or tanner, an opprobrious calling, while others say he ranks with merchants, and his company is not deemed objectionable. This latter statement, if true, may be owing to the circ.u.mstance that he holds a government license. In j.a.pan, as in China, the crown is the fountain of all distinction, and every government official has peculiar privileges and a distinct position in the social scale. After his death, however, the brothel-keeper is held in great disesteem. The sanct.i.ty of the burial-place, to which particular reverence attaches, would be polluted by his unholy presence, and his odious remains are denied the rite of sepulture, and are dragged in the clothes in which he died to a dunghill, there to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey.
Prost.i.tution as a public inst.i.tution is said to have been introduced into j.a.pan by a certain warlike emperor or usurper, who, leading his troops from one place to another in the empire, feared lest, from want of home comforts and domestic ties, they might become disgusted and abandon his service. Accordingly, as a subst.i.tute for lawful enjoyments, he had stations for bands of prost.i.tutes at various points, to the nearest of which he led his fatigued soldiers after his engagements.
Another statement as to the origin of this system is that, on one occasion during a revolution, the spiritual emperor having fled, attended by his foster-mother and a numerous band of female attendants, temporary nuns, the emperor and his foster-mother drowned themselves in fear of capture by the enemies; whereupon the attendant nuns, cut off from all other resource, adopted libertinism as a means of livelihood, and this gave the first public example and sanction to a reprobate state of life.
There are in j.a.pan various religious inst.i.tutions of a character similar to convents and monasteries. The vow of celibacy and chast.i.ty is one of the requisites of this state, yet, notwithstanding this vow, the monks are described as living very intemperately, seducing both women and girls, and committing other shameful enormities.[371]
Among the mendicant religious orders to which both s.e.xes belong, the nuns are numerous. They are described as being very fine-looking women. They are generally the children of indigent parents, and good looks are essential to success in their calling, between which and prost.i.tution there seems no difference save in name. Indeed, many of these mendicant nuns go direct from the brothel to their new employment, which, combining various qualifications, is probably more lucrative.
We have been unable to find any information as to the nature or extent of venereal diseases, if any, in j.a.pan. Of infanticide also we have no account.
Commodore Perry, in the Narrative of his Expedition, confirms the facts above stated so far as his opportunities for observation extended.
Difficulties were at first thrown in the way of his seeing the j.a.panese women, and when he walked about the interpreters preceded him, and, under a show of doing him honor, ordered all the women into their houses.
Afterward, on the commodore"s remonstrance, the women were allowed to make their appearance, and their manners and looks were not by any means unpleasing. When the officers of the expedition were entertained, they sometimes waited on the party with tea, coffee, and other refreshments.
Their manners were mild, their countenances were soft and pleasing, the only objectionable point about them being the abominable habit of blackening their teeth with a highly corrosive pigment partly composed of iron filings and a fermented liquor called saki, which affected the gums very offensively, and caused an appearance and odor decidedly unpleasing to the tastes of Western travelers.
The women of the working cla.s.ses were engaged in hard field and out-door labor, but not to a greater extent than in densely populated countries in most parts of the world. Commodore Perry a.s.sumes that licentiousness must be prevalent in large cities, but he bears his testimony to the good conduct of the women whom the people of the expedition met while on sh.o.r.e.[372]