CO129-473 - Individuals - 1921 — Page 199

MINUTES.

MINUTES NOT TO BE WRITTEN ON THIS SIDE.

The Mui Tsai System.

SABTE

137

197

THIS May be considered to have become the means by which the demand for domestic servants is supplied. The circumstances of the country (for reasons given below) have made board and lodging in a family which can afford it something to be fervently desired for their female children by very many parents. The girla' maintenance and training become the wages of the work done,whilst a single payment to the parents represents the support a child in other circumstances might be expected voluntarily to afford. The age at which

children must work if they are to live is so low that any idea of trusting the average mui taai with wagea to be disposed of at her own will is out of the

question at the beginning: and the Chinese of the

class which would supply mui tsai cannot afford to look far ahead. Some idea of the ultimate money val of the girl on marriage may even be considered in thị payment made: though the exact ideas underlying the "deeds gift" the formal documents of transfer of

are left to be inferred from a comparisei

of the many varying conditions they contain. The

deeds take many shapes down to the most illiterate

and have little in common beyond the use of the wo.

"Sung" (present) and the avoidance of "mai" (sell).

They generally contain conditions as to

treatment, and perhaps as to marriage: they may go

further and enter the details of the control which

the parents may continue to exercise: but all thin

is as a rule omitted and has to be regulated by the

customs applicable to the fucts.

mui tsai

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For in theory still parents do not lose all

control