Though disapproved of by educated
Chinese, the practice is treated with forbearance or indifference by
the man of the people and is acquiesced in by the mandarins."
"When seriously appealed to on the subject," says the Rev. J.
Doolittle in _Social Life of the Chinese_, "though all deprecate it as
contrary to the dictates of reason and the instincts of nature, many
are ready boldly to apologize for it and declare it to be necessary,
especially in the families of the excessively poor."
Here again the wide prevalence of the custom is the first and best
proof that women are driven by some great pressure within themselves
to accede to it. If further proof were necessary, it is afforded by
the testimony of Occidentals who have lived in China, that Chinese
midwives are extremely skillful in producing early abortion. Abortions
are not performed without the consent and usually only at the demand
of the woman.
In China, as in India, the religions of the country condemned, even as
they to-day condemn, infanticide. Both foreign and native governments
have sought to make an end of the custom. But in both countries it
still prevails. Nor are these Eastern countries substantially
different from their Western neighbors.
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