If a Chinese woman has the heaven-bestowed gift of being obstreperous to such a degree that, as the sayings go, "people do not know east from west"; that "men are worn out and horses exhausted"; that "the mountains tremble and the earth shakes," this is unquestionably her surest life-preserver. It is analagous to the South American toucan, which is said to frighten away enemies by the mere exhibition of itself, they not caring to wait for further and detailed proofs of its capacities of execution. But if such an endowment has been denied her, her next best resource is to pursue a course exactly the opposite, in all circumstances and under all provocations _holding her tongue_. To most Chinese women, this seems to be a feat as difficult as aërial navigation, but now and then an isolated case shows that the difficult is not always the impossible. The present position of woman in China is a heritage of the remote past, as is illustrated by the most ancient Chinese literature, an example of which heads the present chapter. The instructions and the prohibitions in the Book of Rites, one of the oldest and most venerated classical works, embody fundamental principles which have always governed the Chinese in their treatment of women. The essence of the Chinese classical teaching on this subject is, that woman is as inferior to man as the earth is inferior to heaven; and that she can never attain to full equality with man. According to Chinese philosophy death and evil have their origin in the _Yin_, or female principle of Chinese dualism, while life and prosperity come from the subjection of it to the _Yang_, or male principle; hence it is regarded as a law of nature to keep woman completely under the power of man, and to allow her no will of her own. The result of this theory and the corresponding practice is that the ideal for women is not development and cultivation, but submission. Women can have no happiness of their own, but must live and work for men, the only practical escape from this degradation being found in becoming the mother of a son. Woman is bound by the same laws of existence in the other world. She belongs to the same husband, and is dependent for her happiness on the sacrifices offered by her descendants.[5]