chapter 20
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Nay, even if you will pare the old Hebrew feminine ideal, the woman who layeth her hands to the spindle and whose fingers hold the distaff, who looketh well to the ways of her household ah not the bread of idleness, with the up-to-date modem ese woman who layeth her hands on the piano and whose fingers hold a big bouquet, who, dressed in tight fitting yellow dress with a band of tinsel gold around her head, goes to show herself and sing before a miscellaneous crowd in the fu Association Hall: if you pare these two feminine ideals, you will then know how fast and far modern a is drifting away from true civilisation. For the womanhood in a nation is the flower of the civilisation, of the state of civilisation in that nation.But now to e to our question : what is the ese feminine ideal? The ese feminine ideal I answer, is essentially the same as the old Hebrew feminine ideal with one important difference of which I will speak later on. The ese feminine ideal is the same as the old Hebrew ideal in that it is not an ideal merely for hanging up as a picture in one s room; nor an ideal for a man to spend his whole life in caressing and worshipping. The ese feminine ideal is an ideal with a broom in her hands to sweep and the rooms with. In fact the ese written character for a wife is posed of two radicals meaning a woman and meaning a broom. In classical ese, in what I have called the official uniform ese, a wife is called the Keeper of the Provision Room_a Mistress of the Kit . Ihe true feminine ideal, _the feminine
ideal of all people with a true, not tinsel civilisation, such as the old Hebrews, the a Greeks and the Romans, is essentially the same as the ese feminine ideal: the true feminine ideal is always the Hausfrau, the house wife, la dame de menage or chatelaine .
But now to go more into details. The ese feminine ideal, as it is handed down from the earliest times, is summed up in three obediences and Four Virtues. Now what are the four virtues? They are: first womanly character; sed, womanly versation; third, womanly appearance ;and lastly, womanly work . Womanly character means raordinary talents or intelligence, but modesty, cheerfulness, chastity, stancy, orderliness, blameless dud perfect manners. Womanly versation means not eloquence or brilliant talk, but refined choice of words, o use coarse or violent language, to know when to speak and when to stop speaking. Womanly appearance means not beauty or prettiness of face, but personal liness and faultlessness in dress and attire. Lastly, womanly work mean<cite>藏书网</cite>s not any special skill or ability, but assiduous attention to the spinning room, o waste time in laughing and giggling and work i to prepare and wholesome food, especially when there are guests in the house. These are the four essentials in the duct of a woman as laid down in the "Lessons for Women", written by Tsao Ta Ku or Lady Tsao, sister of the great historian Pan Ku of the Han Dynasty.
Then again what do the Three Obediences in the ese feminine ideal mean? They mean really three self sacrifices or "live tors?" That is to say, when a woman is unmarried, she is to live for her father; when married, she is to live for her husband ; and, as a widow, she is to live for her children. In fact, the chief end of a woman in a is not to live for herself, or for society; not to be a reformer or to be president of
the womans natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world; the chief end of a woman in a is to live as a good daughter, a good wife and a good mother.
A fn lady friend of mine once wrote and asked me whether it is true that we ese believe, like the Mohammedans, that a woman has no soul. I wrote bad told her that we ese do not hold that a woman has no soul, but that we hold that a woman, _a true ese woman has no self. Now speaking of this "<s>９９ｌiｂ?</s>no self" in the ese woman leads me to say a few words on a very difficult subject, _a subject which is not only difficult, but, I am afraid almost impossible for people with the modern European education to uand, viz. age in a. This subject of age, I am afraid, is not only a difficult, but also a dangerous subject to discuss in public. But, as the English poet says.
Thus fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
I will try my best here to explain why age in a is not su immoral as people generally imagine.
The first thing I want to say on this subject of age is that it is the selflessness in the ese woman which makes age in a not only possible, but also no immoral. But, before I go further, let me tell you here, that age in a does not mean having many wives . By Law in a, a man is allowed to have only one wife, but he may have as many handmaids or es as he like. In Japanese a handmaid or e is called te-kaki, a hand rae-kaki an eye rack;_i. e. to say, a rack where to rest your hands or eyes on when you are tired. Now? the feminine ideal in a, I said, is not an ideal for a man to spend his whole life in caressing and worshipping. The ese feminine ideal is, for a wife to live absolutely, selflessly for her husband. Therefore when a husband who is sick or invalided from overwork with his brain and mind, re-quires a handmaid, a hand rack or eye rack to enable him to get well and to fit him for his life work, the wife in a with her selflessness, gives it to him just as a good wife in Europe and America gives an armchair oat s milk to her husband when he is sick or requires it. In fact it is the selflessness of the wife in a, her sense of duty, the duty of self s99liｂ?acrifice which allows a man in a to have handmaids or es.
But people will say to me, "why ask selflessness and sacrifily from the woman? What about the man?" To this. I answer, does not the man, _ the husband, who toils and moils to support his family, and especially if he is a gentleman, who has to do his duty not only to his family, but to his King and try, and, in doing that has, some time even to give his life: does he not also make sacrifice? The Emperor Kanghsi in a valedictory decree which he issued on his death bed, said that "he did not know until then what a life of sacrifice the life of an Emperor in a is. " A, let me say here by the way, Messrs. J. B. Bland and Backhouse in their latest book have described this Emperor Kanghsi as a huge, helpless, horrid Brigham Young, who was dragged into his grave by the multitude of his wives and children. But, of course, for modern men like Messrs. J. P. Bland and Backhouse, age is inceivable except as something horrid, vile and nasty, because the diseased imagination of such men ceive of nothing except nasty, vile and horrid things. But that is her here nor there. Now what I want to say here is that the life of every true man_from the Emperor down to the ricksha coolie_and every true woman, is a life of sacrifice. The sacrifice of a woman in a is to live selflessly for the man whom she calls husband, and the sacrifice of the man in a is to provide for, to protect at all costs the woman or women whom he has taken into his house and also the children they may bear him. Io people who talk of the immorality of age in a, I would say that to me the ese
mandarin who keeps es is less selfish, less immoral than the European in his motor car, who picks up a helpless woman from the public street and, after amusing himself with her fo<cite></cite>r one night, throws her away again on the pavement of the public street the m. The ese mandarin with his es may be selfish, but he at least provides a house for his es and holds himself for life responsible for the maintenance of the women he keeps. In fact, if the mandarin is selfish, I say that the European in his motor car is not only selfish, but a coward. Ruskin says, "The honour of a true soldier is verily not to be able to slay, but to be willing and ready at all times to be slain. " In the same way I say, the honour of a woman_a true woman in a, is not only to love arue to her husband, but to live absolutely, selflessly for him. In fact, this Religion of Selflessness is the religion of the woman, especially, the gentlewoman or lady in a, as the Religion of Loyalty which I have tried elsewhere to explain, is the religion of the man, _the gentleman in a. Until fners e to uand these twions, the &quion of Loyalty and the Religion of Selflessness" of the ese people, they ever uand the real aman, or the real ese woman.
But people will again say to me, "What about love? a man who really loves his wife have the heart to have other women besides her in his house?" To this I answer, yes, _ Why not? For the real test that a husband really loves his wife is not that he should spend his whole life in lying down at her feet and caressihe real test whether a man truly loves his wife is whether he is anxious and tries ihing reasonable, not only to protect her, but also not to hurt her, not to hurt her feelings. Now t a strange woman into the house must hurt the wife, hurt her feelings. But here, I say, it is what I have called the Religion of Selflessness which protects the wife from being hurt: it is this absolute Selflessness in the woman in a
which makes it possible for her not to feel hurt when she sees her husband bring another woman into the house. In other words, it is the selflessness in the wife in a whiables, permits the husband to take a e without hurting the wife. For here, let me point out, a gentleman, _a real gentleman in a, akes a e without the sent of his wife and a real gentlewoman or lady in a whehere is a proper reason that her husband should take a e, will never refuse to give her sent. I know of many cases where having no children the husband after middle age wao take a e, but because the wife refused to give her sent, desisted. I know even of a case where the husband, because he did not want to exact this mark of selflessness from his wife who was sid in bad health, refused, when urged by the wife, to take a e, but the wife, without his knowledge and sent, not only bought a e, but actually forced him to take the e into the house. In fact, the prote for the wife against the abuse of age in a is the love of her husband for her. Instead, therefore of saying that husbands in a ot truly love their wives because they take es, one should rather say it is because the husband in a so truly loves his wife that he has the privilege and liberty of taking es without fear of his abusing that privilege and liberty. This liberty, this privilege is sometimes and evehe sense of honour in the men iion is low as now in this anarchic a, of ten abused. But still I say the prote for the wife in a where the husband is allowed to take a e, is the love of her husbaud for her, the love of her husband, and, I must add here, his tact _the perfect good taste in the real ese gentleman. I wonder if one man in a thousand among the ordinary Europeans and Ameris, who keep more than one woman in the same house without turning the house into a fighting cockpit or hell. In short, it is this tact, .he perfect good taste in the real ese
gentleman which makes it possible for the wife in a not to feel hurt, when the husband takes and keeps a handmaid, a hand rack, an eye ra the same house with her. But to sum up, _it is the Religion of selflessness, the absolute selflessness of the woman, _the gentlewoman or lady and the love of the husband for his wife and his tact,_the perfect good taste of a real ese gentleman, which, as I said, makes age in a, not only possible, but also not immoral.. fucius said, "The Law of the Gentleman takes its rise from the relatioween the husband and the wife. "
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