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*
THE MUI-TSAI SYSTEM,
-----------------
4-
200
With this general preliminary explanation
of the position of the "mui-tsai" it must be borne in mind that the system in some form or other, is common to all parts of China, and is in fact an almost necessary result of the conditions that obtain there. Though it may be a rich country, the vast majority of the population lives in circumstances of grinding poverty; and even in the stage above, where a reason- able hand to mouth existence should be normally possible, the ever recurring troubles of flood, drought, civil war, piracy and robbery make the matter of a single extra mouth in the family one of life and death.
The religion of China - ancestor worship, with the duty of observing it in the hands of the make succession exclusively - at once marks the female mouths as those to be most easily dispensed with. Girls belong even to prosperous families only to the time of their marriage, when they are absorbed into the husband's families: and among the poor, it is
not a long step to anticipate the realisation of a
girl's money valus (including the payment which is a
regular part of the marriage settlement) when
circumstances make it necessary to part with her before she has reached marriageable age.
And action of this nature by no means
necessarily connotes any lack of parental affection.
The life of poverty is a terrible one; an extra
mouth and extra mouths arrive in direct proportion
Ju
to increased poverty - means Bo much less for the
others; and it may be and often is the best that even
fond