SOLD IN MARRIAGE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 18

SOLD IN MARRIAGE

HOW THEY DO IN CHINA The other dav an 18-year-old Chinese girl was sold in marriage for £5O to a repulsive old man who already bad one wife. Her prayers to her father had no effect, and the procession, enlivened by the tuneless music that the Chinese love, set out through the streets of Peking tor the bridegroom's house. There someone noticed a dark and spreading stain on the bright-hued wedding chair, and on peering inside the guests found the girl bride dead. An unusually sensational ending to a tragedy that is onlv too commonplace. The Western girl is apt to picture the Hast as the home of romance. She should be everlastingly grateful that she is spared the humiliation, sorrow, and suffering which too often are the lot of her Chinese sister (says G. C. Dixon in the “Dailv Mail”).

To begin with, marriage in China is not merely arranged without the girl’s consent; she never even sets eyes on the man until the day of the wedding. He may be aslant-eyed Adonis, or be mav be a perfect horror with whom marriage would be, for a sensitive girl, almost unthinkable. The average Chinese father, though fond of his children, is fonder still of gold; and no Chinese values girls much anyway. . If a rich old merchant or a plundering swashbuckler from the provinces makes him an offer for his daughter, he is not likely to let sentiment stand in the wav of business.

And in other wavs the Chinese bride is to be pitied When she leaves her faniilv and home on her wedding-day she leaves both for ever, and must sav qood-bve to all the amusements and social pleasures that the European girl Aiolds dear. Nor has she the compensations which the romanticnllv-minded woman mav find in the life of the harem—the love and admiration of her husband and the ' unfailing attention of slaves. The Chinese wife, far from being mistress of the household, is the lowest of all the bridegroom’s family and must be prepared’to obev not’onlv her mother-in-law—a tremendous personage in China -but even her husband’s vounger sisters. She must endure sneers and slights without complaint, she must keep alwavs in the background, and (in the middle classes, at least) she must do a great deal of hard work, waiting on the others like a servant. Even the weddiim itself is an exhausting business The feast goes on for anything up to two or three davs Guests mav go awav, sleep, and return, but the bride must sit at the head of the table and go on smilino even if she be crushed bv urief and fatimie Everyone takes a delight in pinchino her and pulling her-hair, as a test of temner, and anart-from this rough practical ioking there is much that is disagreeable. All this she must endure stoically, for as T discovered on mv first dav in Peking, no race values annearance's more than the Chinese The rain nonred down that dnv in a grev and meinnchoß sheet, and throned, it came a fantastic nrocession— a closed ‘chair borne h’’ drinning coolies, half-a-dozen music' enc tudnctrimiclv ccreecffirK’. and n Ion"

line of gutulv pieces of furniture, all in process of becoming discoloured and unstuck “A wedding.’! thev told me. "But why allow the furniture to spoil,” “Oh, that’s alwavs done. Rain or fine, the presents must Tie carried in procession. How else is the world to know the bride received anv ?”