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Author of “My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard,” “The Soul Traders,” etc.
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X. HYDERABAD AND THE MOHAMMEDAN WOMAN 154
XIII. BURMESE RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION 200
Facing page “TWO WOMEN SHALL BE GRINDING AT THE MILL” 9
DANCING AT A VILLAGE FESTIVAL, BURMAH 183
A BUDDHIST SCHOOL MANDALAY (SHOWING BEGGING-BOWL) 194
CHINESE WOMEN WARMING HANDS AND FEET WITH BRAZIERS 214
AN OLD-FASHIONED CHINESE GIRLS’ SCHOOL 224
WHEELBARROW AND COOLIE—USED IN PLACE OF WAGONS IN TOWNS AND COUNTRY VILLAGES NEAR SHANGHAI 236
“TWO WOMEN SHALL BE GRINDING AT THE MILL.”
“What thou biddest Unargued I obey. So God ordains; God is _thy_ law, thou mine: to know no more Is woman’s happiest knowledge, and her praise.”
This is the creed of the woman of the East to-day. It is the same as it has been for centuries; it will continue the same for centuries to come. Indeed, it is a question whether the Oriental woman, with all her intellectual and social advance which is already beginning, will be able ever to free herself from those traditional and inherent influences which have been wrought into the very warp and woof of Eastern humanity.
The Eastern woman is primarily a traditionalist. She is more closely bound by hereditary tendency than the woman of the West. One of her outstanding characteristics has lain for years in her dependency and passive reliance upon her husband for economic support and protection. Her very seclusion means to her, not that which the word would connote to the Westerner, slavery or imprisonment; to her it is rather the mantle of protective care and interest thrown over her by her lord and master. It has helped to make her feminine, as it has naturally added to her inefficiency as far as any work is concerned that bears a similitude of masculine activity.