HOW THEY DO IT IN CHINA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1073, 11 March 1911, Page 11

HOW THEY DO IT IN CHINA.

Although Chinese women are subservient to their fathers, husbands, or sons, they manage apparently to got their own way in many, things. A woman who spent several years in China says"Chineso women have an, unusual amount of selfassertion, and a wife often manages to resist ill-treatment. If she is too much oppressed, she pouts for days, aud will not speak. If this fails, she falls into a nervous crisis, with howls and yells. Tho worst thing that can happen to a Chinaman is to 'lose face,' and he loses face among his neighbours if he cannot control his wife and keep her from disturbing them by her shrieks. A Chinese woman's temper, therefore, is her surest lifo preserver. Her last resource is suicide. A medical missionary told us that she had often been called in in cases when ti wife had taken poison. If her husband then relented, she would consent to tako an antidote; if not, she would refuso it, and die. A Chinaman dislikes to have his wife commit suicide, for several reasons.-' She has a chance to get tho ear of the heavenly Judge first. Also, her family may sue the husband, and make him pay for a very costly funeral, which sometimes ruins him. Chinese women are undoubtedly advancing when t.hey daro to assert themselves against any male custom. Recently thero was held in Peking a gathering of 600 Chinese women students and teachers, who met to protest against cigarette smoking. Tho meeting was presided over by a very able woman, a direct descendant, it is claimed, of Confucius.