the drowning of daughters—early mongolian civilization marked by ancestor worship—severe character of confucius—“beginning” of infanticide, 200 b. c.—reforms of the emperor choentche and the manchus in the seventeenth century—decrees reducing the cost of wedding gifts in order to stop parents from killing female children.
assuming that the human cradle was in the eastern archipelago, and more particularly in the island of java where dr. dubois discovered his pithecanthropus erectus, the primeval home of the mongolian division of the human race was the tibetan plateau. from this central plateau the early mongol groups spread during the stone age over the asiatic continent, in one place developing into the akkado-sumerians of babylonia, the almost extinct hyperboreans of siberia in another, the mongolo-tartars stretching across central asia from japan to europe, the tibeto-indo-chinese of tibet, indo-china, and china, and the oceanic mongols of malaysia, madagascar, and the philippines.
in tibet even today, polyandrous customs are47 still strong and the nomadic tendencies of the people show that the years of civilization or near-civilization have not changed the primitive roving inclinations, inclinations that partly account for the indifference to child life among the chinese.
our knowledge of ancient china rests principally on two authorities, the chou king of confucius, written 484 b. c., and the sse ki of tsse ma thsein, written at the beginning of the first era before christ. confucius was not able to go further back than seventeen centuries before his own time, so that we can safely say that we know something about chinese history for about 2200 years before the christian era. the social and political life of the chinese people in the time of yao, the first of the emperors named by confucius, was that of a pastoral people, but even then most of the useful arts had been invented, writing was already known, and the first notions of astronomy on which they founded their calendar had been acquired. the successor of yao was chun, and after chun came hia, the founder of a dynasty which lasted from 2205 to 1767 b. c., with which dynasty began the real history of china.
when confucius appeared the chinese empire was a highly civilized nation, but of confucius it has been said that he, more than any other one man, went to make china a nation. born at a time when his country was torn with discord and desolated by war, husbandry neglected, peace of households destroyed, and plunder and rapine48 common occurrences, confucius was nineteen when he married and added to the national woes his own domestic troubles, divorcing the lady after a brief period in captivity, but not however until she had borne him a son.
it is through this son that we learn something of the personal character of confucius. an inquisitive disciple asked the son if he had learned any more than those who were not related to the great teacher.
“no,” replied le. “he was standing alone once when i was passing through the court below with hasty steps, and said to me:
“‘have you read the odes?’
“on my replying, ‘not yet,’ he added:
“‘if you do not learn the odes, you will not be fit to converse with.’
“another day in the same way and the same place, he said to me:
“‘have you read the rules of propriety?’
“on my replying ‘not yet,’ he added:
“‘if you do not learn the rules of propriety, your character cannot be established.’”
“i asked one thing,” said the enthusiastic disciple, “and i have learned three things. i have learned about the odes, i have learned about the rules of propriety, and i have learned that the superior man maintains a distant reserve toward his son.”
in this anecdote—and in his works—it is evident that confucius had the chinese estimate of49 the child—the father was sovereign; the child, as long as that sovereign lived, a mere subject. it was this idea and the strongly implanted idea of filial piety that led to the callous attitude toward children among the disciples of confucius.
the chinese explanation and defence of this phase of their life is that up to the year 232 b. c. there did not exist in china anything but the most humane system of treatment of children. the jesuit authors of the mémoires declare that up to that time there is no trace of the drowning of infants, their abandonment, etc. instead of being a burden, says the missionary chronicler, children were considered an asset and the orphan was generally in the position of having to choose between many would-be adoptive parents. the law is cited to prove this, the code declaring that in case there were several people anxious to adopt an orphan, preference should be given to those who were childless.80
it was under ts’in chi hoang,81 who reigned about 232 b. c., that the abominable practice grew up, along with many other ills. the greed and avarice of the nobles and the emperor’s immediate following produced much suffering, in the wake of which came famine, causing mothers and fathers to abandon children that they were not able to feed.
50
whatever truth there may be in this statement, there is very little doubt that the reign of ts’in chi hoang was one of bloodshed, war, and suffering and that with the end of the chou (or chow), dynasty, and the accession of the prince ts’in, first as the dominating king and then as emperor of china, there was much suffering.
“it was a time of extreme severity,” says the historian tsse ma thsien, “and all affairs were decided according to the law without either grace or charity.”82
in addition to his bloodthirsty qualities, the prince ts’in, who was known as the great first emperor and who insisted that all successors should be known as the second, third, and fourth emperors, was superbly egotistic. everything, including literature, was ordained to begin from his reign, to which end he issued an edict that all books should be burned. he put to death so many hundred of the literati who refused to obey this edict that the “melons actually grew in winter on the spot beneath which the bodies were buried”83—a tribute to the fertile character of the chinese literati.
even assuming that the ill-treatment of children as we know it today did not extend farther back than the period ascribed to it by the catholic missionaries, the period of ts’in chi hoang, the51 earliest records of the chinese indicate that the family was placed on a plane that, for severity toward children, challenges even the roman patria potestas. to the emperor yao or yau, who is supposed to have reigned about 2300 years before christ, is ascribed the first step in establishing the chinese attitude toward parents and the respectful obedience exacted from children. particular emphasis was laid on the son’s obedience. it was apparently taken for granted that a daughter would not be rebellious.
having occupied the throne a long time, yao, as it is said, called his ministers about him and, telling them that he had now reigned for more than seventy years, expressed his willingness to abdicate in favour of any one who felt capable of taking the emperor’s place. when no one volunteered—they were wise chinese—he asked them to suggest someone who was deserving of charity.
“yu chun,” answered the ministers, “though an aged man, is without a wife and comes from an obscure family. though his father was blind and of neither talent nor mind, and his mother a wicked woman by whom he was mistreated, and though his brother siang is full of pride, he has observed the rules of filial obedience and has lived in peace and has gradually improved the condition of his family.”
“then,” replied the emperor, “i shall give him my two daughters in marriage and he shall succeed me on the throne to the exclusion of my52 son, ly, who has shown himself to be unworthy by his lack of respect for his parents.”
and it was this yu chun, it is said, who further established the chinese principles of morality, by which the family and not the individual shaped the progress of the nation.
how well established those principles became may be seen from the li ki, which was composed about a thousand years later. this is a code or book of ceremonials on the civil life, composed or put together by or under the patronage of tscheou kong, uncle of the emperor tchin ouang, in 1145 b. c.
“a son,” says the li ki, “possesses nothing while his parents are living. he cannot even expose his life for a friend.”84
“a son has received his life from his father and his mother,” says confucius in the hiao king, composed 480 b. c., “and this gives them rights over him that are above all others.”
in the legend of how tseih, the founder of the house of chow, whose mother was keang yuen and whose father was “a toe print made by god,” the adventures of the child are thus described:
he was placed in a narrow lane,
but the sheep and oxen protected him with loving care.
he was placed in a wide forest,
where he was met with by the wood-cutters.
he was placed on the cold ice,
53and a bird screened and supported him with its wings.
when the bird went away
how tseih began to wail.
his cry was long and loud
so that his voice filled the whole way.
no indication is given in the ode as to who was responsible for exposing the infant to these dangers, but just as in other mythologies in which the heroes or near-gods survive the dangers of infancy, there is no doubt that this chinese hero was pictured as having overlived dangers that were the common lot of the average child. the commentators take different views of the person responsible for the dangers to which how tseih was subjected, maou believing that it was the father, the emperor k’uh; ch’ing on the contrary holding that it was keang yuen, the mother, who did it herself but not for the purpose of getting rid of the child so much as to show what a “marvellous gift he was from heaven.”85
it is not that there are not occasional tender strains in the ode. number seven in the odes of ts’e, the poet, sings:
how young and tender
is the child with his two tufts of hair.
when you see him after not so long a time
lo! he is wearing the cap.86
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writing later the emperor tai tsong, the author of a book called the mirror of gold, repeated these ideas on ancestor worship in the following ordinance (627 to 650 a. d.):
“the foundation of all the virtues is filial piety. it is the first thing to learn and i in my youth have received the right lessons. i have done my best to place at ease all my subjects to the end that the parents might be in a state to bring their children up properly and that infants in their turn might acquit themselves of their duties toward their parents.
“when the virtue of filial piety flourishes, then all other virtues will follow. in order that the empire may know that such is my desire and that it is nearest to my heart, i now order that there be distributed in my name and my account to all those who are known for their filial piety, five large measures of rice. to those who have passed their eightieth year, two measures; to those of ninety years, three measures; ... moreover one shall give, commencing with the first moon, to each woman who gives birth to a son, a measure of rice.”
but twice is there mention of human sacrifice in the chu’un ts’ew but both references indicate that there was little regard for honour as well as for human life. in the account of the reign of duke he, who ruled from 658 to 626 b. c., it is said that when the viscount tsang went to covenant with the people of choo, the viscount was55 sacrificed as an animal might be sacrificed on an altar built on the banks of the suy in order that the wild tribes of the east might be frightened and “drawn toward him.”87
in the twelfth year of the reign of duke ch’aou, who was marquis of loo from b. c. 540 to 509, the army of ts’oo seized yew (yin) and sacrificed him on mount kang.88
not until the reign of choen tche (1633 to 1662 a. d.) was there any movement to check the slaughter of infants. then it was found that infanticide had desolated so many of the provinces that it was necessary for this emperor, the founder of the tsing dynasty, to condemn the crime and warn the inhabitants of hang hoi, of kiang sou, and of fou-kien that the practice must stop.
the first official document endeavouring to save the children was dated the second day of the third moon, 1659, and was an appeal to the emperor by an under-official.
“the supreme king,” it begins, “loves to give life and to prevent destruction. all men have received from heaven a pitying heart. but the corruption of morals comes between the father and the child and causes men to be guilty of cruelty. i, your humble subject, have learned that in the provinces of kiang nan, kiang si, and fou kien there exists the barbarous custom of drowning little girls.”
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the request of the official for an imperial edict against the practice was approved by choen tche, who condemned the murder of female children and ordered the mandarins of the provinces named to use means to check the practice. on the twenty-third day of the third moon in the same year in the presence of his advisers, he issued the following edict:
“we had heard that there were people who drowned their girl children but we had not been able to believe it. today our censor t’kiai having addressed to us a petition on this unholy practice, we are led to believe that it must really exist.
“the paternal emotions come from nature and there ought not be any difference in the manner of treating sons and daughters. why should parents conduct themselves cruelly toward girl babies and condemn them to death? meng tse has said:
“‘when one sees an infant on the point of falling into a well every man feels in his heart the sentiments of fear and compassion.’
“here, however, it is not a question of strangers or of passers-by. since all men are moved at the sight of an infant in danger when that infant is a stranger, what kind of parents must those be who deprive their own children of life? what excesses are they not capable of when they can commit such crimes?
special repository for bodies of neglected babies, china
(reproduced from “china in decay”)
“the supreme ruler loves to give life and wishes 57that all beings might enjoy themselves without harm. but if a mother and father destroy the child to which they have given life, how can they help but see in that act a blot in the celestial harmony?
“if flood and famine, war and pestilence, visit their terrors on the people, it is because these misfortunes are the punishments for the crimes spoken of. the ancient emperors wept bitterly over these faults of the people and pardoned crimes, and by that spirit imitated the spirit of heaven, who loves to give life. when one of our officers addresses us a report concerning a great wrong, we first look to save the life; if it is not possible to use clemency, and if it is necessary that we pronounce the sentence of death, such a decision causes us genuine sadness. how great ought to be our sorrow, however, at the sight of an infant that had hardly been born, condemned to death.
“although the mandarins have prohibited this custom, all people are probably not aware of the prohibition. measures must therefore be taken to bring this prohibition to the knowledge of all and an end must be put to this custom. not until then will we be joyous and content.
“ho long tou in his book entitled on abstaining from drowning little girls has written these words:
“‘the tiger and the wolf are very cruel but they understand the relations that should exist between the parent and its offspring. why then58 should man, gifted as is no animal, show himself to be on a lower plane? our infants, boys and girls, are equally the fruit of our bodies. i have heard that the sad cry uttered by these girl babies as they are plunged into a vase of water and drowned is inexpressible. alas! that the heart of a father or a mother should be so cruel.’”
choen tche then makes an appeal to his subjects asking them not to tolerate further this barbarous custom, dwelling on the superior and more gentle quality of daughters over sons, citing historical instances of the good fortune that many daughters had brought to their parents, and concluding by promising the benediction of heaven on those who would protect the lives of the little females.
choen tche (or shun chih) was the ninth son of t’ien ts’ung and was left to the care of his uncle as regent. his reign was marked by an endeavour to consolidate the newly acquired empire. his biographers speak of his magnanimity as a ruler and he was much praised by his contemporaries. the fact that he treated the catholic missionaries with favour may also partially explain his horror over the conditions of which he was apparently ignorant until the protest.
choen tche’s reign also marked the beginning of many modern things in the history of china. it was during his life that there took place the first diplomatic intercourse between the government of the middle kingdom and the european59 nations, both the dutch and the russians having had an embassy resident at pekin during 1656, but although both were treated most politely, neither achieved the substantial gains they sought.89 it was during his reign too that tea was first introduced to england and a substitute produced for the quart of ale with which even lady jane grey washed down her morning bacon.
it was, however, under the reign of kang hi, the son of choen tche, that the modern attitude toward children was approximated. the great works of kang hi and his long reign have obscured the wisdom and moderation of choen tche. one of kang hi’s first acts was to abolish for all time the eunuchs, a law being passed and engraven on metals that it might stand the ravages of time, forbidding for all time the employment in public service of this class of person, and the manchus, until the time they gave up the sceptre a few years ago, held to their word. thus passed out of chinese history its most industrious class of trouble makers.
but two years after the death of choen tche, a writer named li li ong collected the edicts that were being issued by mandarins to show the spread of vice among the people. among this collection was the following addressed to the governor of the province of tche kiang by the mandarin, ki eul jia, prefect of yen tcheou:
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“the heaven and the earth love to shower benefits on man and to conserve life. but alas! the inhabitants of this prefecture of yen tcheou have the habit of drowning their girl babies. the rich as well as the poor have been found to be guilty of this crime. the tiger, despite his cruelty, does not devour his young, and it is hard to think that man should be insensible to the cries of his drowning infant. i myself have witnessed such drownings and that is why i ask that you send into my six districts a proclamation strictly prohibiting infanticide. it will be printed on stone. if any one should then be guilty of the crime, his neighbours should be encouraged to notify the magistrates that he might be dealt with according to law. as you are charged to maintain morality among the people, i propose that you use this means.”
whether this suggestion was taken or not, it is known that in that particular province infanticide increased instead of diminished. the particularly interesting part of this document is that it brings to light the fact from an official source that the rich as well as the poor were the offenders and that it was not lack of food alone that made this practice so common in china.
even in modern times this is so, a midwife who was asked in recent years to become a christian saying that it was impossible inasmuch as it interfered with her business. she said that frequently she was asked by wealthy people to drown61 the female children which the parents had not the courage to kill themselves.90
in 1720 father d’entrcolles translated a manual for the use of mandarins which bore the title the perfect happiness of the people and which contained a plan for a “house of pity for homeless infants”91 and an exhortation to put such a plan into execution, declaring that in times past there had been such institutions for the reception of orphans and homeless children and that nurses had been provided for them when they had been rescued.
the next proclamation of which we have any knowledge was that issued with the approval of the emperor kien long, who reigned from 1736 to 1796. in 1772, ngeou yang yun ki addressed to the emperor, in the thirty-seventh year and the twenty-ninth day of the tenth moon of his reign, a communication in which it was stated that the poor families had been obliged to drown their daughters because they had not had enough food. permission was asked to inflict on the person who committed this crime, the penalty of sixty blows from a cane, and a year in exile. in 1773 the emperor kien long himself issued the following edict against infanticide:
“the statutes fixing the penalty for the murder of a grown-up child or a small child presuppose that the child has not failed to obey the orders of its parents or grandparents, and cover cases62 where the infants are murdered deliberately and with premeditation. this crime, which violates the laws of nature, should be punished with the whip and with banishment. if the infants that are thus killed are but newly-born and therefore without intelligence and reason, the guilty cannot plead the disobedience of these daughters as an excuse for their crimes. therefore henceforth whenever any one following the barbarous custom shall drown his infants, he will be prosecuted for murder with premeditation, and when the proof has been properly established before the proper tribunals he will receive a sentence equal to that which is meted out to the parents or grandparents who voluntarily assassinate their children. it is not necessary to issue a special ordinance. let all respect this decree.”
a dozen years later another voice was raised in protest against the drowning of girls. chen, treasurer general of the province of kiang sou, presented to the governor of that province a proclamation against infanticide and begged him to publish it.
in 1815 a writer named ou sing king made an appeal to the officials of china to stop the drowning of infants and the sale of women, and this appeal falling into the hands of the emperor kia king, a proclamation was issued against both vices. the writer, ou sing king, was given imperial permission to go further in his investigations.
early in the reign of tao kang (1820–1851)63 the then governor of the province of tche kiang, believing that the expensive wedding gifts were the real cause of the child murder, decreed:
“it is ordered that ornaments of gold, pearls, precious stones, and embroidered gowns are forbidden at all marriages. as for silver ornaments, silks, and other materials, this is the rule that we hereby establish:
“for rich families the sum set out for such purchases must not be over one hundred taels. for people of medium fortune the expense must be limited to from forty to fifty taels. those of inferior blood must not spend more than twenty or thirty taels and the poorest people must not go beyond two or five.92
“as for gifts by the parents to the husband, the quantity is left to their discretion; this being the means to avoid all dispute. after the marriage, on certain occasions, it is permitted to make one or two presents. the celebrations of three and seven days when the grandson is born or when he attains his first year are hereby forbidden and henceforth the people should not have any more difficulties about bringing up daughters. if, in spite of this, the poor are unable to bring up their female children, they must carry them to the orphanage or give them to other families.”93
on the 19th of february, 1838, the lieutenant64 general ki of the province of koang tong instituted an investigation to find out what the actual conditions were in his provinces, and after receiving his reports, issued a proclamation in which he said:
“i am convinced that in the province of koang tong the custom of drowning and suffocating the girl babies is common and that the rich as well as the poor are guilty. the poor pretend that, not having sufficient means of existence, they are not able to bring up their female children, while the rich declare that there is no object in bringing up children that occupy a purely ornamental position in the household.”
ki then goes on to philosophize on the enormity of the crime and the folly of these reasons. never, perhaps, did any single individual in china devote himself with more energy to trying to eradicate this evil than did ki, both by verbal castigation of those who were guilty of the crime and by appealing to the sympathies of the inhabitants of his province. he distributed copies of the works of ouang ouan. he sent out advice and instructions to his subordinates that infanticide must be prevented; he enlisted the nobles and educated people in this fight and reiterated that those who were guilty of the crime would be seized, judged, and punished with sixty blows and a year’s banishment as the law directed. throughout the province his efforts were regarded as extremely interesting, his proclamations as delightful literature, and there was no decrease in the number of murders.
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in 1845 the emperor tao kang himself published an edict condemning the practice and declaring that the extreme punishment permitted by the law would be meted out to the guilty. the edict had no effect.
in 1848 another endeavour was made by the chief magistrate of canton, acting on the initiative of ki, to eliminate the evil in that particular city, but neither in canton or in the province of koang tong was there a cessation of the evil for eighteen years afterward. the emperor kong tche listed both canton and the province as among the places where infanticide was most common.
during the reign of hien fong, 1851–1862, little progress was made. in many parts of china during the following reign, that of tong tche, 1862–1875, attempts were made to check the evil.
during the minority of the emperor the two empress regents issued a proclamation in which they appealed to the “nobles and rich of all villages to contribute for the erection of orphanages where there might be received abandoned children so that the poor will not be able to justify their abominable practice on the ground of poverty.”
the reign of koang siu began in 1875, and was marked with vigorous proclamations and warnings to the people to take their children to the orphan asylums that were being established rather than to throw them into the river.94
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of the conditions as they exist in modern times, travellers and writers are of one accord—infanticide is horribly prevalent. the conditions vary with different localities.
“in fuhkien province,” says williams, “especially in the department of chang chau, in67fanticide prevails to a greater extent than in any other part of the empire yet examined. mr. abeel extended his inquiries to forty different towns and villages lying in the first, and found that the percentage was between seventy and eighty down to ten, giving an average of about68 forty per cent. of all girls born in those places as being murdered. in chang chau, out of seventeen towns, the proportion lies between one fourth and three tenths in some places, occasionally rising to one third, and in others sinking to one fifth, making an average of one fourth put to death. in other departments of the province the practice is confessed, but the proportion thought by intelligent natives to be less, since there is less poverty and fewer people than formerly.”
“infanticide, which until now has gone unpunished,” says dr. lauterer, “is practised especially in pekin and fuhkien. a large per cent. of female infants meet with an unnatural death because of their parents’ poverty or their niggardliness. the unfortunates are simply cast into the nearest stream and the corpse left until the morning when the government’s wagon collects them, or they are exposed in the open where, not being protected from the cold, they soon perish. lately a decree has been made to prohibit it.”95
“the province of fuhkien,” says douglas, “is that in which this crime most obtains. inquiries show that in many districts as large a portion as one fourth of the female children born are destroyed at birth. at pekin, on the other hand, it cannot be said to exist at all. but in this as in so many social offences in china, the sword of the law, which is alone capable of putting down crime, is allowed to hang like a rusty weapon on the wall. it is 69true that occasionally proclamations are issued in which the heinousness of the evil is explained with all the impressiveness that could be desired, but so long as natural affection finds no support from without it will continue, in china, to yield to the requirements of daily food.”96
an overburdened chinese child carrying more than his weight in tea
(copyright by underwood & underwood, n. y.)
“little mothers”—the one five, the other eight, years old—china
“the custom of infanticide,” wrote professor krausse, “is one which has obtained in many parts of china for ages. it does not, as a rule, take the form of actual murder, but consists rather in assisting the laws of nature. thus an infant will be neglected and permitted to perish, or if it sicken, will be put aside and allowed to take its chance.”97
“outside the wall [of wie hsien],” writes a. j. brown, “we saw a ‘baby house,’ a small stone building in which dead children of the poor are thrown to be eaten by dogs!
“i wanted to examine it, but was warned not to do so as the chinese imagine that foreigners make their medicine out of children’s eyes and brains, and our crowds of watching chinese might quickly become an infuriated mob.”98
in the face of all this one reads with interest in a book by a professor of chinese in the university of cambridge that:
“among other atrocious libels which have fastened upon the fair name of the chinese people, first and foremost stands the charge of female70 infanticide, now happily, though still slowly, fading from the calculations of those who seek the truth.”
