THE WOMEN OF ASIA by Isabella Bird Bishop

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Feb 22, 1899

THE WOMEN OF ASIA.

By Isabella Bird Bishop

BY MRS. ISABELLA BIRD BISHOP.

IN Asiatic countries the birth of a girl is at the best a subject for condolence with parents, and none who have heard it can ever forget the wail of the Chinese mother for sorrow that a woman is born into the world. The birth of a girl is a token that the gods are displeased with the mother, and both parents regard them as a bitter wellspring of anxiety and expense. At a very early age the girl is secluded in the women's apartments, and at her marriage at twelve or thirteen is removed to the seclusion of those of her mother-in-law, where she spends her time in menial offices. She prepares her husband's food, but he does not demean himself by eating with her.

Faithfulness in the marriage relation is not incumbent upon men, and is believed to be impossible for women without the protection of the harem walls. It would not be possible to put into words the deep distrust which all orientals, especially Moslems, have of women. Woman is regarded as of no account, not destined to immortality; motherhood is her only title to a species of respect. In China to teach her to read is counted the height of folly, and she is habitually spoken of as "the mean one within the gates." Polygamy, facilities for divorce, the disgrace which attaches to widowhood in India, and child marriage, enhance the degradation of the lot of our Eastern sisters.

The woman's house has none of the sanctity of home. In rich men's houses there are often as many as 200 inmates. Privacy is unknown and impossible. There are legitimate wives, and wives who have few legal rights; slave wives, discarded wives who are practically slaves, female slaves, aged women who act as spies and duennas, girl children, daughters-in-law, and women of several colors and races. They are totally illiterate; the favorite wives in rich men's houses are precluded by rigid custom even from such a light occupation as embroidery; they are without any possible outgoings in the direction of philanthropy or kindness, and never cross the threshold of their dwellings except in closed chairs. Their chief occupations are playing with their children, counting their jewels, changing their dresses, eating sweetmeats, dressing their hair, painting their faces, staining their finger nails, smoking, sleeping, and practising petty tyrannies and cruelties upon their slaves. Their recreations are the performances of singing and dancing girls and fortune-tellers, shopping at home, and small dramas acted by their servants, full of a vileness of language and suggestion perfectly astounding.

In intellect these secluded women are not higher than children, but their circumstances foster an early and gigantic growth of the worst passions which deform humanity,—envy, hatred, malignity, unbridled jealousy, "strong as death and cruel as the grave," revenge, slander, greed, impurity—a leprosy of unholiness which affects well-nigh every home and heart, a foul atmosphere in which every generation receives its earliest impulses. There are no ideals, no examples of goodness to be studied, nothing to raise the thoughts. Influence is represented by intrigue. There are no duties in life other than those to children and parents-in-law, and no true companionship can exist between husband and wife. To be the mother of boys is a woman's highest aspiration.

In all the countries of continental Asia, girlhood, with its charms, its brightness and sweetness, its aspirations and enthusiasms; its frequent alacrity of service, and the bright possibilities for the future, is altogether unknown. There is no middle platform between childhood and the loveless seclusion of wifehood. All that is good in a woman's nature is undeveloped and blighted; all that is evil is developed as in a forcing-house.

To give anything like a correct idea of oriental womanhood, this sketch ought to have its details filled in and to be painted in much darker colors. The imperfect picture I have given represents womanhood under Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Demonism, and is a purely oriental one.—Women's Work for Women.