she goes through the weary round of her daily task. The filthy and loathsome service of fertilizing the soil and of preparing the fuel, made from offal, is always her menial task.1 The situation is well illustrated by the story of a native African who ordered his wife to carry him on her shoulders over a deep and perilous ford of a river. She obeyed his command successfully. The husband, on being remonstrated with by a white man, asked in astonishment, "Then whose wife should carry me over if my own does not?"2 Thus, while it is true that there are many industries in which women can and do happily engage, yet their lot, as a rule, is to be the slave and drudge of men who spend their time in idleness or sport, with no effort to lighten the burdens of life falling so heavily upon the women.3

If

Her indignities and burdens are not, however, physical alone. There are outrages upon her virtue inflicted by lust and greed. The Laws of Manu give the old Indian estimate of woman. She is regarded with intense distrust and counted as simply a malevolent snare to men. a widow she is ever the victim of malicious gossip. Scandals cluster around a widow's door," is a Chinese proverb.5 "No daughter's virtue can be praised until she is dead," is an Indian proverb. "She is married to the gods" in India, which means that she is married to no one, although the slave of all. She is set apart and trained for the indecencies of the nautch while still a child. If there is any difficulty attending her marriage, so inexorable is the law that no one must remain unmarried that she is given perhaps as the fortieth or fiftieth wife to some old man among the Brahmans whose special business it is to marry girls for a consideration, so that if they fail to find a husband in any other way this resource is still open. Then, again, according to the savage etiquette of African hospitality, they must serve as occasion may demand in the capacity of temporary wives to guests.

As might be expected, the natural result of woman's environment and experience where Christianity is unknown is seen in her dwarfed intellectual capacity and her moral and physical degradation. Her service to society has in it necessarily little that is helpful or elevating.

1 Houghton, Women of the Orient," p. 305.

2 Johnston, "Reality Versus Romance in South Central Africa,” p. 65.

3 Cousins, "The Story of the South Seas," p. 143.

4 Wilkins, "Modern Hinduism," pp. 326–336.

5 Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," p. 245.

6 Wilkins, "Modern Hinduism," p. 334.

7 "The Women of India," p. 78, Papers on Indian Social Reform, Madras,

1892.

8 Wilkins, "Modern Hinduism," p. 347.

The result upon her personal character.

Among savage races even the instincts of her humanity seem to have given place to a grovelling and loathsome animalism. In the higher walks of heathenism she seems doomed to live in an atmosphere of suspicion, ignorance, and superstition. The Hindu zenana and the Moslem harem are, as a rule, the haunts of frivolous inanity, fleshly vulgarity, and intriguing jealousy. She knows little of the true ideal of home, and appreciates but feebly the dignity and responsibility of motherhood. False conceptions of duty, virtue, and responsibility govern her life; society is thus robbed of the helpful influence, the brightness, the fragrance, and the charm of her pure companionship, and the world is enfeebled, darkened, and saddened by its absence. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in one of his stories of Indian life, gives the following trenchant verdict as to the real secret of India's degradation. He says by the mouth of one of his characters: "What's the matter with this country is not in the least political, but an all-round entanglement of physical, social, and moral evils and corruptions, all, more or less, due to the unnatural treatment of women. You can't gather figs from thistles, and so long as the system of infant marriage, the prohibition of the remarriage of widows, the lifelong imprisonment of wives in a worse than penal confinement, and the withholding from them of any kind of education or treatment as rational beings continues, the country cannot advance a step. Half of it is morally dead, and worse than dead, and that is just the half from which we have a right to look for the best impulses. It is right here where the trouble is, and not in any political considerations whatsoever. The foundations of their life are rotten-utterly rotten-and beastly rotten. The men talk of their rights and privileges. I have seen the women that bear these very men, and again-may God forgive the men!"

Some modifications of

are to the credit of Eastern womanhood.

It has been said, and no doubt truthfully, that, in spite of all her disabilities, there is much of happiness as well as of dignity and influence in woman's lot in Eastern lands. This is the dark picture which certainly the case in Japan, where there are many bright modifications of the dark picture which has been presented, and where woman is naturally winsome and gentle, and, according to the standards of her country, refined and modest, with a degree of neatness, diligence, devotion, self-sacrifice, and affectionate concern for those she loves which places her on perhaps the highest plane of womanly excellence outside of the home life of Christendom. We must bear in mind in this connection that there is no zenana system in Japan, and very little physical ill

treatment of women. They are looked upon rather as babies and toys. It is not unusual also in China, as well as in Japan, in Korea, and even in India, for women to win their way in some instances to a position of dignity, influence, and power, which secures the respect and admiration of all; yet these cases are confessedly exceptional, and they are especially creditable and honorable to woman herself in that she rises above her limitations and discouragements, and exhibits such characteristic cheerfulness, contentment, and patient docility in such untoward surroundings. The credit of this is due to her, and not to her environments, and shows her to be a tactful and resourceful conqueror of circumstances. Mere happiness, moreover, is not a sign that all is well. Slaves may be happy in their slavery, the ignorant may be contented in their degradation, the oppressed may have such a hopeless and narrow view of life that they make the best of their condition, and move blindly and carelessly on in the path of destiny; but this does not make their degradation the less real; it only reveals the capacity of endurance, of cheerful submission, and patient contentment, which abides in humanity.

The moral dignity of the Christian code of marriage.

2. POLYGAMY AND Concubinage.-Incidental mention has already been made of these subjects, but they can hardly be passed over without some more explicit and detailed reference to the facts concerning them. The unique teachings of Christianity concerning marriage form one of the most unmistakable evidences of the hallowed origin of the Christian code. It is in conflict with the immemorial customs of human history, stamping with instant and uncompromising disapproval the ordinary ways of men as revealed in the conventional non-Christian attitude of society through all time. The wisdom of Christ seems to have led Him to depart from His usual custom, and to legislate in detail as to the invariable Christian rule of morality in the case of marriage. He realized that in this matter not only principle but precept must be explicit and final if the world was to be guided aright.

1

The necessity for definite directions on the part of the Founder of Christianity becomes all the more manifest when we note the devices that have been popular both in ancient and modern society, except where the divine code has ruled, to give a large scope to sensual instincts, while at the same time avoiding the recognized scandal of

1 Brace, "Gesta Christi," p. 30.

universal lewdness. The different forms of marriage recognized by Roman law, especially that of usus, gave wide vent to laxity, while even to these was added, in the Augustan age, the omnium gatherum of concubinage.1 In the non-Christian world of to-day polygamy and concubinage, in connection with easy divorce, are still the recognized expedients for giving an official sanction to the wanton range of passion without the sacrifice of social caste. The convenient fiction of legality and the powerful password of custom lift the disgrace and save the pride of the Eastern world. In the East, as in the West, there is a ready condemnation and denunciation, in theory at least, if not always in practice, of the vice of prostitution. Nowhere will we find it more vigorously and scornfully berated than among Moslems, Hindus, and other Eastern nationalities. A Moslem will defend his piety and moral standing as passionately as he guards the honor of his hidden retinue of the harem, and will repudiate with indignation any hint of irregularity or license in his habits of life. He insists, of course, that he is not holden to Christian standards and cannot be judged by them, his own moral code being the only one that he acknowledges. Thus we will find that the entire non-Christian world is prepared to defend stoutly the traditional moral environment of marriage, including polygamy, concubinage, and divorce at will, as wisely and happily ordered so as to combine a maximum of privilege with a minimum of scandal. This elastic legalization of compromising relations gives, in the eyes of the Oriental, a sufficient respectability to what would otherwise be pronounced illicit and scandalous.

Licensed polygamy a characteristic of ethnic systems.

Strictly speaking, therefore, according to the recognized social code, there is no polygamy in Japan, Korea, or China, and comparatively little even in India. The rule is that there is only one bona fide legal wife of the first rank, and she rides but once in her lifetime in the bridal chair.2 To be sure, there are secondary wives and concubines, but this does not interfere with the monogamous supremacy and dignity of the first or chief wife, to whom the others often bear the relation of servants and underlings. In the imperial palaces, however, there are ranks upon ranks,3 and among the mandarins and the more wealthy classes of Japan, Korea, and China there is an indulgence in this domestic luxury proportionate to position and ability. While this is all true, it must be said, however, that, except among the higher

1 Schmidt, "The Social Results of Early Christianity," p. 42.

2 Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 289.

3 Douglas, "Society in China," p. 15.