CHINESE CHILDREN

New Zealand Tablet, 9 July 1908, Page 37

CHINESE CHILDREN

In China the childhood name given to an infant varies according to circumstances. If the first child has died the second is often called after a tree or an animal, in order to .cheat the evil genie, supposed to be always lying in wait to destroy children. Often a baby is named after the barnyard fowl or after an idol. The evil genie does not see through the deception, and spares the child. Frequently the names chosen are imaginative and poetic. The following are examples of those bestowed on little boys :— Glittering Dawn, Pure Pearl, Budding Flower, Gleaming Star, Retired Garden, Sweet Doctrine, Eyes Like the Moon,. Light Without Eclipse, etc. Girl babies are named The Father's^ Jewel, The Leaf, Immaculate Rose, Perfumed Petal, Velvet Corolla, Virginal Stem, Chosen Carnation, Morning Peace, Happiness Without End.

The children receive new names when old enough to study or to be promised in marriage. In the Celestial Empire children are, at a very early age, betrothed to others' of as tender years, who live in neighboring villages or perhaps at a great distance. It is not customary to arrange these marriages between families of the same surnanTe or between cousins.

The young people thus affianced never see each other, however, until the day of their real marriage, a strange custom which though, to a certain extent, it safeguards the dignity of the marriage state, is not favorable to a good understanding between the contracting parties.'

When a" young affianced husband dies his betrothed is ex-

pected to remain a widow for the rest of her life. - Sometimes she goes to live with his family, where, as time goes by, she adopts one or more children to console her loneliness. This continued widowhood is considered among the- Chinese to be a proof of heroic constancy. At the death of the inconsolable widow the community erects to her memory a stone monument with some such inscription as •To a Fidelity and Virtue a« Boundless as the Ocean.'

.In other cases the bereaved bride is taken back by her. family, who soon choose for her another husband. — ' Society for the Propagation of the Faun.' .