Chapter 20 chapter 20

Nay, even if you will compare the old Hebrew feminine ideal, the woman who layeth her hands to the spindle and whose fingers hold the distaff, who looketh well to the ways of her household and eatth not the bread of idleness, with the up- to-date modem Chinese woman who layeth her hands on the piano and whose fingers hold a big bouquet, who, dressed in tight fitting yellow dress with a band of tinsel gold around her head, goes to show herself and sing before a miscellaneous crowd in the Confucian Association Hall: if you compare these two feminine ideals, you will then know how fast and far modern China is drifting away from true civilization. For the womanhood in a nation is the flower of the civilization, of the state of civilization in that nation.

But now to come to our question : what is the Chinese feminine ideal? The Chinese feminine ideal I answer, is essentially the same as the old Hebrew feminine ideal with one important difference of which I will speak later on. The Chinese feminine ideal is the same as the old Hebrew ideal in that it is not an ideal merely for hanging up as a picture in one s room; nor an ideal for a man to spend his whole life in caressing and worshiping. The Chinese feminine ideal is an ideal with a broom in her hands to sweep and clean the rooms with. In fact the Chinese written character for a wife is composed of two radicals meaning a woman and meaning a broom. In classical Chinese, in what I have called the official uniform Chinese, a wife is called the Keeper of the Provision Room_a Mistress of the Kitchen . Indeed the true feminine ideal, _the feminine

The ideal of all people with a true, not tinsel civilization, such as the old Hebrews, the ancient Greeks and the Romans, is essentially the same as the Chinese feminine ideal: the true feminine ideal is always the Hausfrau, the house wife, la dame de menage or chatelaine. But now to go more into details. The Chinese feminine ideal, as it is handed down from the earliest times, is summed up in three obediences and Four Virtues. Now what are the four virtues? They are: first womanly character; conversation; third, womanly appearance ;and lastly, womanly work . Womanly character means not extraordinary talents or intelligence, but modesty, cheerfulness, chastity, constancy, orderliness, blameless conduct and perfect manners. Womanly conversation means not eloquence or brilliant talk, but refined choice of words, never to use coarse or violent language, to know when to speak and when to stop speaking. Womanly appearance means not beauty or prettiness of face, but personal cleanliness and faultlessness in dress and attire. Lastly, womanly work means not any special skill or ability, but assiduous attention to the spinning room, never to waste time in laughing and giggling and work in the kitchen to prepare clean and wholesome food, especiallywhen there are guests in the house. These are the four essentials in the conduct of a woman as laid down in the "Lessons for Women", written by Tsao Ta Ku or Lady Tsao, sister of the great historian Pan Ku of the Han Dynasty .

Then again what do the Three Obediences in the Chinese feminine ideal mean? They mean really three self sacrifices or "live tors?" That is to say, when a woman is unmarried, she is to live for her father; to live for her husband ; and, as a widow, she is to live for her children. In fact, the chief end of a woman in China is not to live for herself, or for society; president of the womans natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world; the chief end of a woman in China is to live as a good daughter, a good wife and a good mother. A foreign lady friend of mine once wrote and asked me whether it is true that we Chinese believe, like the Mohammedans, that a woman has no soul. I wrote back and told her that we Chinese do not hold that a woman has no soul, but that we hold that a woman, _a true Chinese woman has no self. Now speaking of this "no self" in the Chinese woman leads me to say a few words on a very difficult subject, _a subject which is not only difficult, but , I am afraid almost impossible for people with the modern European education to understand, viz. concubinage in China. This subject of concubinage, I am afraid, is not only a difficult, but also a dangerous subject to discuss in public. But, as the English poet says.

Thus fools rush in where angels fear to tread, I will try my best here to explain why concubinage in China is not such an immoral custom as people generally imagine. The first thing I want to say on this subject of concubinage is that it is the selflessness in the Chinese woman which makes concubinage in China not only possible, but also no immortal. But, before I go further, let me tell you here, that concubinage in China does not mean having many wives . By Law in China, a man is allowed to have only one wife, but he may have as many maids or concubines as he like. In Japanese a maid or concubine is called te-kaki, a hand rack or me-kaki an eye rack;_i. e. to say, a rack where to rest your hands or eyes on when you are tired. Now? the feminine ideal in China, I said, is not an ideal for a man to spend his whole life in caressing and worshiping. The Chinese feminine ideal is, for a wife to live absolutely, selflessly for her husband. Therefore when a husband who is sick or invalided from overwork with his brain and mind, re-quires a handmaid, a hand rack or eye rack to enable him to get well and to fit him for his life work, the wife in Ch ina with her selflessness, gives it to him just as a good wife in Europe and America gives an armchair or goat s milk to her husband when he is sick or requires it. In fact it is the selflessness of the wife in China, her sense of duty, the duty of self sacrifice which allows a man in China to have maids or concubines.

But people will say to me, "why ask selflessness and sacrifice only from the woman? What about the man?" To this. I answer, does not the man, _ the husband, who toils and moils to support his family, and especially if he is a gentleman, who has to do his duty not only to his family, but to his King and country, and, in doing that has, some time even to give his life: does he not also make sacrifice? The Emperor Kanghsi in a valedictory decree which he issued on his death bed, said that "he did not know until then what a life of sacrifice the life of an Emperor in China is." And yet, let me say here by the way, Messrs. JB Bland and Backhouse in their latest book have described this Emperor Kanghsi as a huge, helpless, horrid Brigham Young, who was dragged into his grave by the multitude of his wives and children. But, of course, for modern men like Messrs. JP Bland and Backhouse, concubinage is inconceivable except as something horrid, vile and nasty, because the diseased imagination o f such men can conceive of nothing except nasty, vile and horrid things. But that is neither here nor there. Now what I want to say here is that the life of every true man_from the Emperor down to the ricksha coolie_and every true woman, is a life of sacrifice. The sacrifice of a woman in China is to live selflessly for the man whom she calls husband, and the sacrifice of the man in China is to provide for, to protect at all costs the woman or women whom he has taken into his house and also the children they may bear him. Indeed to people who talk of the immorality of concubinage in China, I would say that to me the Chinese

mandarin who keeps concubines is less selfish, less immune than the European in his motor car, who picks up a helpless woman from the public street and, after amusing himself with her for one night, throws her away again on the pavement of the public street the next morning. The Chinese mandarin with his concubines may be selfish, but he at least provides a house for his concubines and holds himself for life responsible for the maintenance of the women he keeps. In fact, if the mandarin is selfish, I say that the European in his motor car is not only selfish, but a coward. Ruskin says, "The honor of a true soldier is verily not to be able to slay, but to be willing and ready at all times to be slain." In the same way I say, the honor of a woman_a true woman in China, is not only to love and be true to her husband, but to live absolutely, selflessly for him. In fact, this Religion of Selflessness is the religion of the woman , especially, the gentlewoman or lady in China, as the Reli gion of Loyalty which I have tried elsewhere to explain, is the religion of the man, _the gentleman in China. Until foreigners come to understand these two religions, the "Religion of Loyalty and the Religion of Selflessness" of the Chinese people, they can never understand the real Chinese man, or the real Chinese woman.

But people will again say to me, "What about love? Can a man who really loves his wife have the heart to have other women besides her in his house?" To this I answer, yes, _ Why not? For the real test that a husband really loves his wife is not that he should spend his whole life in lying down at her feet and caressing her. The real test whether a man truly loves his wife is whether he is anxious and tries in everything reasonable, not only to protect her, but also not to hurt her, not to hurt her feelings. Now to bring a strange woman into the house must hurt the wife, hurt her feelings. But here, I say, it is what I have called the Religion of Selflessness which protects the wife from being hurt: it is this absolute Selflessness in the woman in China

which makes it possible for her not to feel hurt when she sees her husband bring another woman into the house. In other words, it is the selflessness in the wife in China which enables, permits the husband to take a concubine without hurting the wife. For here, let me point out, a gentleman, _a real gentleman in China, never takes a concubine without the consent of his wife and a real gentlewoman or lady in China whenever there is a proper reason that her husband should take a concubine, will never refuse to give her consent. I know of many cases where having no children the husband after middle age wanted to take a concubine, but because the wife refused to give her consent, despaired. I know even of a case where the husband, because he did not want to exact this mark of selflessness from his wife who was sick and in bad health, refused, when urged by the wife, to take a concubine, but the wife, without his knowledge and consent, not only bought a concubine, but actually forced him to take the concubine into the house. In fact, the protection for the wife against the abuse of concubinage in China is the love of her husband for her. Instead, therefore of saying that husbands in China cannot truly love their wives because they take concubines, one should rather say it is because the husband in China so truly loves his wife that he has the privilege and liberty of taking concubines without fear of his abusing that privilege and liberty. This liberty, this privilege is sometimes and even_when the sense of honor in the men in the nation is low as now in this anarchic China, of ten abused. But still I say the protection for the wife in China where the husband is allowed to take a concubine, is the love of her husbaud for her, the love of her husband, and, I must add here, his tact _the perfect good taste in the real Chinese gentleman. I wonder if one man in a thousand among the ordinary Europeans and Americans, who can keep more than one woman in the same house without t turning the house into a fighting cockpit or hell. In short, it is this tact, _the perfect good taste in the real Chinese

gentleman which makes it possible for the wife in China not to feel hurt, when the husband takes and keeps a handheld, a hand rack, an eye rack in the same house with her. But to sum up, _it is the Religion of selflessness, the absolute selflessness of the woman, _the gentlewoman or lady and the love of the husband for his wife and his tact,_the perfect good taste of a real Chinese gentleman, which, as I said, makes concubinage in China, not only possible, but also not immoral.. Confucius said, "The Law of the Gentleman takes its rise from the relation between the husband and the wife."