THE POPULATION OF CHINA
39
she is bound by every tie of duty to encourage and to patronize a concubine through whom his name may be preserved, and provision made that when he leaves the world honours will be done to his manes. One of the most popular of Chinese writers says, "There are in the world wives who, never having borne boys nor nourished girls, even when the husband has reached the age of forty, prohibit his bringing home a concubine or entertaining a handmaid for the purpose of continuing his posterity
they look upon such a person with jealous hatred and malignant ill-will. Alas! do you not know how fleet is time! Stretch as you may your months and your years, they fly like arrows; and when your husband's animal spirits and vigorous blood shall be exhausted, then indeed he can never beget children, and you, his wife, will have stopped the ancestral sacrifices, and you will have cut off his generation; then repentance, though you may exhibit it in a hundred ways, will indeed come too late; his mortal body will die; his property, which you, husband and wife, have sought to keep together, will not descend to his children, but be fought for by multitudes of kindred and relations; and you will have injured not one person, - not your husband only, -- but even yourself; for who shall take charge of your coffin and your tomb? who shall bury you or offer sacrifices? Alas! your orphaned spirit shall pass nights in tears. It is sorrowful to think of. There are some wives who do control their jealousies, and allow their husbands to take concubines to themselves; but they do so (ungenerously) as if they were drinking vinegar, and eating acids; they beat Betty by way of scolding Belinda* - there is no peace in the inner house. But I beseech you to act as a prudent and virtuous woman. If you have no children, provide with openness and honesty a concubine† for your husband. If she bear him children, to you he will owe that the arteries and veins of his ancestral line are continued; his children will honour you as their mother, and will not this comfort you? Give not way to the malignant jealousy of a wicked woman! not a bitterness which you yourself must swallow."‡
* Prepare Chang for Lee, i.e., they punish the concubine's servants to be revenged on the concubine.
† Genesis, xxx 1-13.
From the Perfect Collection of Household Gems.
THE POPULATION OF CHINA
39
she is bound by every tie of duty to encourage and to patronize a concubine through whom his name may be preserved, and provision made that when he leaves the world honours will be done to his manes. One of the most popular of Chinese writers says, "There are in the world wives who, never having borne boys nor nourished girls, even when the husband has reached the age of forty, prohibit his bringing home a concubine or entertaining a handmaid for the purpose of continuing his posterity
J
they look upon such a person with jealous hatred and malignant ill-will. Alas! do you not know how fleet is time! Stretch as you may your months and your years, they fly like arrows; and when your husband's animal spirits and vigorous blood shall be exhausted, then indeed he can never beget children, and you, his wife, will have stopped the ancestral sacrifices, and you will have cut off his generation then repentance, though you may exhibit it in a hundred ways, will indeed come too late his mortal body will die his property, which you, husband and wife, have sought to keep together, will not descend to his children, but be fought for by multitudes of kindred and relations; and you will have injured not one person, - not your husband only, -- but even yourself; for who shall take charge of your coffin and your tomb? who shall bury you or offer sacrifices? Alas! your orphaned spirit shall pass nights in tears. It is sorrowful to think of. There are some wives who do control their jealousies, and allow their husbands to take concubines to themselves; but they do so (ungenerously) as if they were drinking vinegar, and eating acids they beat Betty by way of scolding Belinda* - there is no peace in the inner house. But I beseech you to act as a prudent and virtuous woman. It you have no children, provide with openness and honesty a concubine† for your husband. If she bear him children, to you he will owe that the arteries and veins of his ancestral line are continued his children will honour you as their mother, and will not this comfort you? Give not way to the malignant jealously of a wicked woman!
not a bitterness which you yourself must swallow."‡
*
Prepare
Chang for Lee, i.e., they punish the concubine's servants to be revenged on the concubine.
† Genesis, xxx 1-13.
From the
✯✯ Perfect Collection of Household Gems.
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