Most of the romance in a Chinese woman's life, however, is found in the books, which tell of the earlier days. The first event in the life of most women in China, though she does not at the time realize it, is a sad one. There is usually scant welcome for the girl. Certainly, amidst the masses of the people, she enters upon a rough and weary way. She is reared in seclusion and ignorance. Her little brothers, even, are not her companions. If she should have any association with them, she is little better than their servant. Her name does not appear upon the family register, since she is expected to belong to another family when she is old enough to wed. Does one ask of courtship in China? There is no such thing there, unless bartering by go-betweens could be called by that name. Girls spend their last days of maidenhood in loud wailing, and their girl friends come to weep with them. Well may they do this. After marriage, which is itself a bitter rather than a happy experience for the bride, they continue a life of worse slavery--slavery abject and heartless--to women who have been slaves to other women. The mother-in-law in China rules her daughter-in-law with an iron hand, and the wife's future depends much more upon the character of the husband's mother than upon the husband himself. That the coming of girls into the home is not so welcome an event as that of boys is quite natural, for it is expected that at about sixteen years of age the girl will become a member of another family, returning but occasionally to the house of her birth. So that while a mother's hope of prestige lies in her sons, the ministering cares which she might expect in duty from her daughter must be tendered her by the wife of her son rather than by the sympathetic hands of her daughter, whose attentions must be unremitting to the mother of her own husband. Betrothals are sometimes made in infancy. But since such contracts are regarded as being quite as binding as a marriage, wisdom usually dictates a postponement. Girls are therefore usually betrothed a year or two before marriage, which in most cases occurs at about fifteen years of age. Among the poorer classes, in order to avoid the expense ordinarily involved in betrothal, a mother will sometimes buy, or receive as a gift, an infant girl, who is reared as a wife for her son.