A modified form of domestic slavery is occasionally found in Weihaiwei as elsewhere in China: though slavery is indeed much too harsh a term to apply to a form of service which is totally devoid of hardship or degradation. The Chinese are as a rule indulgent masters and are hardly ever (in the part of China with which we are dealing) guilty of deliberate cruelty towards the inferior members of their households. The so-called slaves are generally bought as young girls from poor parents or guardians for the purpose of domestic service. They are treated as subordinate members of the family, and as a rule partake of much the same fare as their masters and mistresses. Their owners are responsible for their good health and moral character, and are expected to help them in due time to obtain respectable husbands. The great majority of the people of Weihaiwei, being only small farmers, are compelled to do their own house-work unaided: slave-girls are thus found only in a few of the most prosperous households. An instance will show that in spite of the indulgent treatment accorded to them, slave-girls are regarded as the absolute property of their purchasers. A petitioner named Ch'ü Wên-k'uei complained of "the unlawful annexation of a female slave" of whom he declared himself to be the rightful owner. "Five years ago I became by formal adoption the son of my father's elder brother, who died childless. His widow, my adoptive mother, bought a slave-girl two years ago for the sum of one hundred dollars. My aunt and adoptive mother died two months ago and I have inherited her property. The slave-girl is part of the property and therefore by right belongs to me. Unfortunately a short time before her death my adoptive mother lent the slave-girl to the Ts'ung family, and the Ts'ung family now refuses to hand her over to me on the plea that she has been betrothed to one of the little Ts'ungs. As I gave no consent to her betrothal I consider it null and void, and I petition for an order of the court requiring the Ts'ung family to return my slave-girl without further ado." To the surprise of both parties the court allowed the question of her disposal to be decided by the slave-girl herself, and she elected to stay with the family of her betrothed. FOOTNOTES: [158] Just the same was the theory of the old Sumerian law. [159] See pp. 149 _seq._ [160] _Ibid._ [161] A bird that pecks at its parent's eyes as soon as it is fledged and so is an example of unfilial conduct. [162] _I ma pu pei shuang an; Chung ch'ên pu shih erh chu._ [163] In some other parts of the Empire things are apparently very different. The Rev. J. Macgowan writes very strongly on the subject in his _Sidelights on Chinese Life_, pp. 32 _seq._ But I cannot believe that "sixty per cent. of the husbands throughout the Empire" practise wife-beating "habitually" (p. 35). [164] Mere disparity of age, however, is not regarded as an insuperable objection to a "dead marriage."