tingent of cultivators of their fields, and when the autumn harvesting is over, by a process of wholesale divorce the contract comes to an end.1 The savage races brush aside all these fine distinctions of moral finesse so popular among the more advanced Orientals, and recognize no legal limitations whatever to their polygamous practices. Wives are a badge of social distinction, and give a princely éclat to the household. Throughout the whole African Continent and in the island homes of paganism the highest ambition, next to distinction in war, seems to be unlimited ownership of wives.2 3. ADULTERY AND DIVORCE.-According to the social and legal standards of non-Christian lands, using the term in its strict technical sense, there is less adultery than one would expect. So far as the wife is concerned, she is guarded with extraordinary care, and her punishment in case of a lapse is severe and merciless. In theory it is usually death either by strangling or lapidation, but this extreme penalty is in most cases allowed to lapse in practice. So far as the man is concerned, the liberty which he claims to take to himself under legal forms secondary wives and concubines, and the right which he exercises of swift and informal divorce, put adultery in its technical sense outside the usual range of his indulgence. He finds such large license within the limits of custom and safety that an adulterous connection is not sought for, nor is it, as a rule, very practicable. Judged, however, by Christian standards, half the flimsy marital relations of the Asiatic and African nations are adulterous. Arbitrary power of divorce a conceded right in heathen systems. Divorce is everywhere easily accomplished with little formality and upon the most trivial pretexts. Almost the only restraint is the fear of scandal or of personally offending the relatives of the wife. It is practically at the will of the husband. It is his prerogative, not the wife's. It is hardly possible, nor is it usually conceded even in theory in non-Christian law, that a woman can either divorce or secure a divorce from her husband, although a separation by mutual consent can be everywhere resorted to without fear of legal consequences. A power so arbitrary and despotic on the part of the husband is, as might 1 Browne, "A Year among the Persians," p. 462; "Report of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, U. S. A., 1895," p. 166. 2 Rowley, Twenty Years in Central Africa,” p. 125; Tyler, "Forty Years among the Zulus," p. 117; Johnston, "Missionary Landscapes in the Dark Continent," p. 168; Ingham, "Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years," p. 316. be expected, a facile expedient for wrecking the marriage relation. It is the ready instrument of wanton desire, and at the same time introduces heartless uncertainty and gross injustice into the lot of woman. She is the passive victim, and has no redress for the wrong done her. In China the husband's power of divorce seems to be unlimited so far as his secondary wives are concerned. In the case of the first or chief wife, however, he must run the gantlet of possible complications arising from opposition on the part of her family friends. Still further embarrassments arise in case the wife's parents have died since her marriage, or if she has served the husband's parents until their death, or if her husband has grown rich since her marriage. Theoretically the husband is free to divorce for any one of the "seven justifying causes," namely, "barrenness, lewdness, jealousy, talkativeness, thievery, disobedience to her husband's parents, and loathsome disease."2 This would seem to open the door to the unrestricted exercise of the right. In reality, however, public opinion and the power of precedent and custom exert considerable influence in restraining intemperate impulses on the part of the husband. In Japan the list of justifying causes is substantially identical with those mentioned above, and the husband is practically under some constraint for the same reasons that hold in China, especially the possibility of offending the wife's family in case she is from the higher ranks of society. Among the lower classes of Japan, however, there is much less restraint, and divorce is frequently resorted to. In the five years from 1885 to 1889, inclusive, there was a total of 1,579,648 marriages in the Empire of Japan, and a total of 559,032 divorces-or an average of 111,806 divorces annually, or one divorce to a fraction (2.88) less than every three marriages. In 1891 the marriages were 325,651, and the divorces 112,411, substantially the same proportion. Comparing these statistics with those of France for the same years, we find that from 1885 to 1889, inclusive, there were 29,148 divorces, or an average of 5829 annually, while the proportion of divorces to marriages was, in 1885, 14 for 1000, which had increased, however, so that it amounted to 24 for 1000 in 1891. In the United States there were slightly over 40,000 divorces granted in 1894. Recent legislation in Japan has modified somewhat the legal features of divorce, so that at the present moment the whole subject is under the cognizance of law in a 1 Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 131. 2 Fielde, "A Corner of Cathay," p. 32. way which was unknown a few years ago. It has become possible now for a wife to legally sue for a divorce.1 The immemorial rule, however, has been that a wife must give her husband full liberty to do as he will and should not even be jealous if he sought other society.2 In India divorce does not seem to be prevalent, except among Moslems.3 The Islamic code of divorce gives more license than is usual among Oriental nations. It is almost literally without restraint, except that the husband is required to pay the divorced wife's dowry. The absolute secrecy which enshrouds the Mohammedan harem covers many dark and cruel wrongs. According to Moslem tradition and custom, the Mohammedan husband can exercise absolute and irresponsible power within the precincts of his harem. Even the police are prohibited from entering on any pretext whatever. He can cast out his wife simply by the use of a familiar spoken formula, brief and peremptory, and she has no redress. In Turkey divorce is often resorted to among Moslems, and, except that certain legal formalities are required among the upper classes, it is a commonplace of domestic life. No disgrace attends it, nor is it any barrier to subsequent alliances. Even girls not yet twenty years of age may have been divorced and remarried a dozen times. This is virtually prostitution under guise of domestic relations, and the final lot of the victim is sooner or later to become a social outcast. In India an important aspect of this whole question is the proper regulation, by legal enactments, of the undoubted right of divorce where Christian converts are unjustly bound by non-Christian alliances. According to Mohammedan law in India, conversion to Christianity on the part of either husband or wife dissolves the marriage tie, and the party remaining a Moslem is free to contract another alliance. Legislation is needed which will secure to native Christian converts under these circumstances a legal divorce which will free them from bondage. In the case also of child marriage, which is regarded by present British law as binding, although it may have been contracted in infancy and remains still unconsummated, legislative reform is needed which will allow it to be regarded in the light simply of betrothal.5 1 Cf. "Civil Code of Japan: Book on the Law of the Person," paragraph 87, p. 31 (English translation). 2 Mrs. Bishop, "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," vol. i., p. 333. 3 Thoburn, "India and Malaysia," p. 368. Indian Evangelical Review, July, 1895, p. 119. 5 "1 'Report of the Bombay Conference, 1892," vol. i., pp. 56–95. The evils of child marriage. 4. CHILD MARRIAGE and WidowHOOD.-Child marriage is in defiance of a law of nature at once beneficent and supreme. Its evils are multiform and deplorable. It is physically injurious, morally deleterious, mentally weakening, destructive of family dignity, productive of enfeebled offspring, increases the probability of early widowhood, provokes the curse of poverty, and tends to rapid over-population. The testimony of native Indians of education and independent judgment (especially medical men) is clear and emphatic as to its sad and dangerous tendencies.2 The population of India to-day is largely the children of children, and, as marriage is contracted with little or no regard to the ability of the husband to support a family, this is one secret of the terrible and grinding poverty of the country. National vigor in many sections of the great peninsula has suffered a notable decline, owing to the constant stream of infant life born of immaturity, and called to struggle with insanitary conditions and blighting disease. Child marriage in its worst forms seems to be associated with the higher castes, among whom also the restrictions of intermarriage with other castes are inexorable, and involve a narrowing of the marriage relation within a too limited circle. The custom of infant marriage is not equally prevalent throughout India, and facts which may be true of one section of the country may not apply to others; yet the practice is sufficiently prevalent to make it a gigantic evil of Indian society and characteristic of the country. The census of 1891 reports 17,928,640 girls in India between the ages of five and nine. Of this number 2,201,404 were already married and 64,040 were widows. The report further shows that there were 12,168,592 girls between the ages of ten and fourteen, and of this number 6,016,759 were married and 174,532 were widows. In the province of Mysore the number of girls married under nine years of age in the year 1881 was 12,000, while in 1891 it was 18,000, showing an increase of 50 per cent. In 1891 out of 971,500 married women 11,157 had been married at or before the age of four years, and 180,997 between the ages of five and nine, showing that one out of every five of the wives was married under the age of nine. There were in the province at that time 23,000 child widows below the age of fourteen. The total of married children in all India under five years of age is as follows: boys, 103,000; girls, 258,000. The total of widowed children under five years of age is, boys, 7000, and girls, 14,000. 1 "The Women of India," pp. 60-64. བྷ ་་ Sanitary Reform in India,” p. 29. The average age of marriage for girls among the Brahmans is between six and seven. Some are married before seven years of age. Nearly all are married before ten. Even babes are often married as soon as they are born.1 Twelve seems to be the limit of age beyond which it is a disgrace for the girl not to be married and a sin for the father not to have found her a husband.2 The discussions of the Indian sacred books as to the marriageable age of girls are not fit for quotation. They are part of the prurient vulgarity of Hinduism in its treatment of woman. The reasons usually assigned for infant marriage are that it is essential to the peace of a man's soul after death that he should have children who can duly perform his funeral rites, and that early marriages increase the probability of offspring, and on this account are to be commended. It is also argued that the custom tends to morality, and that it is justified in India for physical reasons. The arguments that early marriages are required in the interests of morality and are justified by the early development of Indian girls are not sustained by facts. On the contrary, the custom is a dangerous stimulus to immorality, and quickens to an unnatural precocity the relation of the sexes. It is, moreover, denied by competent authority that climatic conditions in India are to the extent claimed responsible for early maturity. The pernicious customs of the country as regards marriage have unbalanced nature and prematurely forced the physical and mental growth of Indian children of both sexes.1 Further restrictive needed. The physical sufferings induced by early marriage form a shocking indictment against a cruel custom.5 In a recent memorial, signed by fifty-five lady doctors, petitioning the Indian legislation concerning Government on the subject of child marriage, and infant marriage greatly forwarded by Mrs. Dr. Mansell of Lucknow to the Governor-General, a strong appeal based upon medical experience was presented, urging that fourteen years be the minimum age for the consummation of marriage. The appeal is sustained by most pitiful facts, drawn from medical experience, as to the physical cruelties attending the prevalent custom of infant marriage. According to what is known as the "Native Marriage Act" of 1872, forced marriages are prohibited under the age of eighteen for men and 1 "The Women of India," p. 56. 2 Ibid., p. 57. 3 Sir Monier-Williams, "Brahmanism and Hinduism," p. 387. 4 "The Women of India," p. 59. 5 Ibid., p. 61. |