WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
He insists that the Oriental idea of women is much higher than his friend has been led to believe. "With respect to soul," he says, "the Asiatics are much kinder to the fair sex than you imagine: instead of one soul, Fohi, the idol of China, gives every woman three; the Brahmins give them fifteen; and even Mahomet himself nowhere excludes the sex from Paradise. Abulfeda reports that an old woman one day importuning him to know what she ought to do in order to gain Paradise—'My good lady.' answered the Prophet, 'old women never get there.' 'What! never get to Paradise?' returned the matron, in a fury. 'Never,' says he, 'for they always grow young by the way.' Now, sir," continued I, "the men of Asia behave with more deference to the sex than you seem to imagine."
The women of China are taller than their Japanese neighbours. Their skin is sallow and but little pigmented. The cheekbones are high; the nose broad and rather flat. A great point of beauty is the eye. The lips should be thin and the ears large. The outer corners of the eyes must droop, giving the eye-aperture a crooked appearance. From infancy the feet are cramped by the use of tight bandages, and the feet of women are scarcely bigger than those of little children. The deformed foot gives an awkward gait, but this is admired in China. Nature has given Chinese women
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