Part 6 (2/2)
Thy daughter, Kwei-li.
5 My Dear Mother, We are in the midst of a most perplexing problem, and one that is hard for us to cope with, as it is so utterly new. My children seem to have formed an alliance amongst themselves in opposition to the wishes of their parents on all subjects touching the customs and traditions of the family. My son, as thou rememberest, was betrothed in childhood to the daughter of his father's friend, the Governor of Chili-li. He is a man now, and should fulfill that most solemn obligation that we, his parents, laid upon him-- and he refuses. I can see thee sit back aghast at this lack of filial spirit; and I, too, am aghast. I cannot understand this generation; I'm afraid that I cannot understand these, my children. My boy insists that he will marry a girl of his own choice, a girl with a foreign education like unto his own. We have remonstrated, we have urged, we have commanded, and now at last a compromise has been effected. We have agreed that when she comes to us, teachers shall be brought to the house and she shall be taught the new learning. Along with the duties of wife she shall see the new life around her and from it take what is best for her to know.
I can understand his desire to have a wife with whom he may talk of the things or common interest to them both, a wife who can share with him, at least in part, the life beyond the woman's courtyard. I remember how I felt when thy son returned from foreign lands, filled with new sights, new thoughts in which I could not share. I had been sitting quietly behind closed doors, and I felt that I could not help in this new vision that had come to him. I could speak to only one side of his life, when I wished to speak to all; but I studied, I learned, and, as far as it is possible for a Chinese woman, I have made my steps agree with those or my husband, and we march close, side by side.
My son would like his wife to be placed in a school, the school from which my daughter has just now graduated; but I will not allow it. I am not in favour of such schools for our girls. It has made or Wan-li a half-trained Western woman, a woman who finds music in the piano instead of the lute, who quotes from Sh.e.l.ley, and Wordsworth, instead of from the Chinese cla.s.sics, who thinks embroidery work for servants, and the ordering of her household a thing beneath her great mental status.
I, of course, wish her to marry at once; as to me that is the holiest desire of woman-- to marry and give men-- children to the world; but it seems that the word ”marry” has opened the door to floods of talk to which I can only listen in silent amazement. I never before had realised that I have had the honour of bearing children with such tongues of eloquence; and I fully understand that I belong to a past, a very ancient past-- the Mings, from what I hear, are my contemporaries. And all these words are poured upon me to try to persuade me to allow Wan-li to become a doctor. Canst thou imagine it? A daughter of the house of Liu a doctor! From whence has she received these unseemly ideas except in this foreign school that teaches the equality of the s.e.xes to such an extent that our daughters want to compete with men in their professions! I am not so much of the past as my daughter seems to think; for I believe, within certain bounds, in the social freedom of our women; but why commercial freedom? For centuries untold, men have been able to support their wives; why enter the market-places? Is it not enough that they take care of the home, that they train the children and fulfill the duties of the life in which the G.o.ds place women? My daughter is not ugly, she is most beautiful; yet she says she will not marry. I tell her that when once her eyes are opened to the loved one, they will be closed to all the world beside, and this desire to enter the great world of turmoil and strife will flee like dew-drops before the summer's dawn.
I also quoted her what I told Chih-peh many moons ago, when he refused to marry the wife thou hadst chosen for him: ”Man attains not by himself, nor woman by herself, but like the one-winged birds of the ancient legend, they must rise together.”
My daughter tossed her head and answered me that those were doubtless words of great wisdom, but they were written by a man long dead, and it did not affect her ideas upon the subject of her marriage.
We dare not insist, for we find, to our horror, that she has joined a band of girls who have made a vow, writing it with their blood, that, rather than become wives to husbands not of their own choice, they will cross the River of Death. Fifteen girls, all friends of my daughter, and all of whom have been studying the new education for women, have joined this sisterhood; and we, their mothers, are in despair.
What can we do? Shall we insist that they return to the old regime and learn nothing but embroidery? Why can they not take what is best for an Eastern woman from the learning of the West, as the bee selects honey from each flower, and leave the rest? It takes centuries of training to change the habits and thoughts of a nation. It cannot be done at once; our girls have not the foundation on which to build. Our womanhood has been trained by centuries of caressing care to look as lovely as nature allows, to learn obedience to father as a child, to husband as a wife, and to children when age comes with his frosty fingers.
Yet we all know that the last is a theory only to be read in books.
Where is there one so autocratic in her own home as a Chinese mother? She lives within its four walls, but there she is supreme. Her sons obey her even when their hair is touched with silver. Did not thy son have to ask thy leave before he would decide that he could go with His Highness to the foreign lands? Did he not say frankly that he must consult his mother, and was he not honoured and given permission to come to his home to have thy blessing? Dost thou remember when Yuan was appointed secretary to the emba.s.sy in London, and declined the honour because his mother was old and did not wish her only son to journey o'er the seas; he gave up willingly and cheerfully the one great opportunity of his life rather than bring sorrow to the one who bore him.
A similar case came to our ears but a few days since. Some priests of a foreign mission came to my husband and wished him to intercede, as Governor, and command the Taotai of Soochow to sell to them a piece of land on which to erect a temple of their faith. When the Taotai was asked why he was so persistent in his refusal to carry out the promise of the man before him in the office, he told the Governor that the temple where his mother wors.h.i.+pped was in a direct line with the proposed new foreign house of wors.h.i.+p. His mother feared that a spire would be placed upon its rooftree that would intercept the good spirits of the air from bringing directly to her family rooftree the blessings from the temple. My husband tried to persuade him that the superst.i.tions of a woman long in years should not stand in the way of a possible quarrel with men of a foreign power, but the Taotai only shrugged his shoulders and said, ”What can I do? She is my mother. I cannot go against her expressed commands;” and-- the temple to the foreign G.o.d will not be built.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Mylady16.]
But it is as foolish to talk to Wan-li as ”to ask the loan of a comb from a Buddhist nun.” She will not listen; or, if she does, a smile lies in the open lily of her face, and she bows her head in mock submission; then instantly lifts it again with new arguments learned from foreign books, and arguments that I in my ignorance cannot refute.
I feel that I am alone on a strange sea with this, my household; and I am in deadly fear that she will do some shocking thing, like those girls from the school in Foochow who, dressed in their brothers'
clothing, came to Nanking and asked to be allowed to fight on the side of the Republic. Patriotism is a virtue, but the battle-field is man's place. Let the women stay at home and make the bandages to bind the wounded, and keep the braziers lighted to warm returning men.
I will not write thee more of troubles, but I will tell thee that thy box of clothing came and is most welcome; also the cooking oil, which gave our food the taste of former days. The oils and sauces bought at shops are not so pure as those thy servants make within the compound, nor does the cook here prepare things to my taste. Canst send me Feng-yi, who understands our customs? Thy son has no great appet.i.te, and I hope that food prepared in homely ways may tempt him to linger longer at the table. He is greatly over-worked, and if he eat not well, with enjoyment of his rice, the summer will quite likely find him ill.
Thy daughter and thy family who touch thy hand, Kwei-li
6 My Dear Mother, Thy letter came, and I thank thee for thy advice. It is most difficult to act upon. I cannot shut Wan-li within an inner chamber, nor can I keep her without rice until she sees the wisdom of her ways. The times are truly different; we mothers of the present have lost our power to control our children, and cannot as in former days compel obedience. I can only talk to her; she laughs. I quote to her the words of the Sage: ”Is any blessing better than to give a man a son, man's prime desire by which he and his name shall live beyond himself; a foot for him to stand on, a hand to stop his falling, so that in his son's youth he will be young again, and in his strength be strong.” Be the mother of men; and I hear that, that is China's trouble. She has too many children, too many thousands of clutching baby fingers, too many tiny mouths asking for their daily food. I am told, by this learned daughter of mine, that China has given no new thing to the world for many tens of centuries. She has no time to write, no time to think of new inventions; she must work for the morrow's rice. ”How have you eaten?” Is the salutation that one Chinese makes to another when meeting on a pathway; and in that question is the root of our greatest need. I am told that we are a nation of rank materialists; that we pray only for benefits that we may feel or see, instead of asking for the blessings of the Spirit to be sent us from above; that the women of my time and kind are the ruin of the country, with our cry of sons, sons!
But if our girls flaunt motherhood, if this thought of each one for himself prevails, what will become of us, a nation that depends upon its wors.h.i.+p of the ancestors for its only practical religion? The loosening of the family bonds, the greater liberty of the single person, means the lessening of the restraining power of this old religion which depends upon the family life and the unity of that life. To do away with it is to do away with the greatest influence for good in China to-day.
What will become of the filial piety that has been the backbone of our country? This family life has always been, from time immemorial, the foundation-stone of our Empire, and filial piety is the foundation-stone of the family life.
I read not long since, in the Christian's Sacred Book, the commandment, ”Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d hath given thee,” and I thought that perhaps in the observance of that rule is to be found one of the chief causes for the long continuance of the Chinese Empire.
What is there to compare in binding power to the family customs of our people? Their piety, their love one for the other and that to which it leads, the faithfulness of husband to his wife-- all these, in spite of what may be said against them by the newer generation, do exist and must influence the nation for its good. And this one great fact must be counted amongst the forces, if it is not the greatest force, which bind the Chinese people in bonds strong as ropes of twisted bamboo.
Our boys and girls will not listen; they are trying to be what they are not, trying to wear clothes not made for them, trying to be like nations and people utterly foreign to them; and they will not succeed. But, ”into a sack holding a ri, only a ri will go,” and these sacks of our young people are full to overflowing with this, which seems to me dearly acquired knowledge, and there is not room for more. Time will help, and they will learn caution and discretion in life's halls of experience, and we can only guard their footsteps as best we may.
In the meantime, Mother mine, my days are full and worried, and I, as in the olden time, can only come to thee with my rice-bowl filled with troubles and pour them all into thy kindly lap. It is my only comfort, as thy son is bitter and will not talk with patience, and it would not be seemly for me to open wide my heart to strangers; but I know thou lovest me and art full of years and knowledge and will help me find the way.
Kwei-li.
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