We saw several of these processions. I cannot give a tithe
of all the customs observed; they would fill pages. But one is
significant; the bride is required to kneel before the husband's
family tablet, and to worship his ancestors, her own being from
that moment apparently of no account to her, and her father gives
her, as his parting injunction, the command to yield hereafter to
her new parents the obedience and reverence hitherto his due.
When the entire day has been spent in the ceremonies required,
dinner for the couple is announced, and they are left alone with
each other for the first time in their lives; but she may not
partake one morsel of the feast, and, harder still, perhaps, not
one syllable must she speak. Etiquette demands that she "sit in
silence, grave and dignified," and she cannot break fast upon her
wedding day. The woman's chief study is a book giving minute
instructions for her guidance through life. In this are prescribed
the three great duties of woman: 1, obedience when a child to her
parents; 2, obedience when a wife to her husband; 3, obedience
when a widow to her eldest son. The government of man is thus
secured for the weaker vessel from the cradle to the grave. No
Eastern man could be made to believe that the influence of the
masculine intellect is not absolutely essential for the well-being
of the female; and so it undoubtedly will be in the East as long
as woman is uneducated.
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