Every Shanghai resident knows: such familiar names s Zee Kai Wei and Wong Kai Shaw. To many they represent but two residential districts in the Western section of the town, These terms really stand for Zee's village or Wong's village. Excepting in urban districts, En nese as a whole still maintain the ancient clan. system, the grouping together of clansmen, all of whom claim a_common ancestry, a common shrine dedicated to their worship, and a common patriarch possessing an almost unlimited Suthority over the villagers. The some other childish frolic, a Chinese girl will commence serving a self-inflicted term of seclusion imposed upon her by an absurd and unnatural institution, and which will last her whole life, in a fashion akin to that of ' imprisonment. Before reaching her teens she must be confined and secluded in the in-normest portion of the house wherein reside al] the women folk, including the grandmother, mother, daughter-in-law and: daughters. Beginning at that age, she is' not permitted to come into contact with any male person except her own father, brother and a few selected. many of the recorded events in ud is one that has bren servants of the house. Romance would be condemned as the sum grained in the people. An indignity inflicted upon any member ig avenged as a common grievance by. his clansmen. Individaal interest. must be subordinated to the common benefit of the clan, This! spirt of clanism has unquestionably a good deal to do in shaping Chinese society and institutions as) they exist to-day.
The Daughter a Second Fiddle total of all viees, Etiquette requires her absolute seclusion, and the old code of decency forbids a girl "passing an article by hand to person of opposite sex." So strictly has the rule been observed that one cannot meet, a girl in a respectable family, nor could one be seen in the public street. To make her life more unbearable and miserable, it was also at that age that the mother would commence to 'The birth of a son in a family' means an additional reinforcement to the size and strength of the clan, while, on the other hand, a daughter, who will in time be somebody's, not the clansman's wife, except in the way of a burden to her parents, will not bring any material advantage to the family or to the clan at large. Even if she should become a star, her lustre will not it} redound to the credit of her parents' family, the same being reserved exclusively for that of her husband's, A son's honour and glory will immediately reflect. on the whole family as well as the clan. Tt is for this reason that the birth of son is regarded as a more auspicious event everywhere in China than that of a daughter. Many of her disabilities are, engendered through the agency of the Chinese exaggerated estimation of the worth of the son.
In almost every family in China the daughter is reduced to playing the second fiddle, the best toys and the finest candies are not for her.
She must surrender the best of everything to her brothers. Under this unwholesome atmosphere, with the popular prejudice distinctly Against her, it is extremely unlikely that she will be in a position to exact from man recognition of her inherent rights due to her as a human being. It has always been held as quite consistent with Chinese ideas of etiquette for one person to ask of the other, how many sons he has. If a man' had no son but or two daughters, he would say, Alas, ho son but so many daughters and more often he would eat the conversation short, curtly replying: "No son." Petty incidents the above show the tendency of the Chinese mind, and to what degree of estimation the daughter is generally held,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.