VII.] THE MARRIAGE OF DEPARTED SPIRITS. 217 If a of females who have been cut off at a like early age. youth of twelve years dies, it is customary when he has been dead six or seven years, for his parents to seek to unite his spirit in wedlock with that of a girl whose birth and death corresponded in point of time with those of their son. For this purpose application is made to a go-between, and when a selection has been made from this functionary's list of deceased maidens, an astrologer is consulted. When the astrologer, having cast the horoscopes of the two departed spirits, has pronounced the selection judicious, a lucky night is set apart for the solemnization of the marriage. On that night, a paper figure representing a bridegroom in full marriage costume, is placed in the ceremonial hall of his parents' house; and at nine o'clock, or in some instances later, a bridal chair, which is sometimes made of a rattan-frame covered with paper, is despatched in the name of the spirit of the youth to the house of the parents of the deceased girl, with a request that they will be so good as to allow the spirit of their daughter to seat itself therein for the purpose of being conveyed to her new home. As one of the three souls of which the body of a Chinese is supposed to be possessed, is said after death to remain with the ancestral tablet, the tablet bearing the name of the girl is removed from the ancestral altar and placed in the bridal chair, where it is supplemented by a paper figure intended to represent the bride. The bridal procession is headed by two musicians, one of whom plays upon a lute and the other upon a tom-tom, and sometimes the wearing apparel which belonged to the deceased girl, and which for the future is to be in the keeping of the parents of the departed youth, is carried in it. On the arrival of the procession, the tablet and the effigy are removed from the bridal chair, and placed, the former on the ancestral altar, and the latter on a chair close to that occupied by the effigy of the bridegroom. A table covered with various kinds of viands is placed before the effigies, whilst five or six priests of Taou are engaged in chanting prayers to the spirits, calling upon them to receive one another as husband and wife, and to partake of the wedding repast. At the close of this ceremony the effigies are burned, together with a great quantity of paper clothes, paper money, paper man-servants and maid-servants, fans, tobacco-pipes, and sedan chairs. I was once present at such a ceremony. It took place at the house of a Chinese friend named Cha Kum-hoi, who resided in the Kwong-ga-lee street of the western suburb of Canton. The immediate occasion of this marriage was, it so happened, the illness of this gentleman's wife, which was attributed by the geomancer or fortune-teller to the angry spirit of her son, who was importunate to be married. A matrimonial engagement was therefore immediately entered into on behalf of the deceased son, and was duly solemnized as I have described it. CHAPTER VIII. DIVORCE. THE law of divorce in China has, apparently, from time immemorial, afforded great facilities to men in all ranks and conditions of life for putting away their wives. On the other hand, as was the case amongst the ancient Jews, a wife cannot cite her husband, however culpable his conduct may be, before any of the civil tribunals with the view of obtaining a dissolution of marriage. The grounds upon which a husband can obtain a divorce from his wife are the following:-Incompatibility of temper, drunkenness, theft, desertion, disobedience, lewdness, undutifulness towards himself or towards his parents, a discovery of her unchastity on the first night of marriage, and unfaithfulness. The facility which so comprehensive a list gives to Chinese husbands for putting away their wives, is not lessened by the very simple mode of procedure through which a divorce is obtained. The husband seeking a divorce, invites his father and other male relatives and kinsmen to meet in the ancestral hall of the clan or family, for the purpose of hearing and investigating the charge, or charges, which he is prepared to prove against his wife. To each one invited, a betel nut 1 Drunkenness probably includes opium-smoking. Thus, in 1871, a physician, named Lum Hok-hin, who resided in the Honam suburb of Canton, put away his wife upon discovering that she was an opium-smoker. She had only been married to him for a few weeks, when she was sent back by the disappointed husband to her native village. |