WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
small feet, but they are not satisfied unless the feet are diminutive.
Unlike most Asiatic people, the Chinese have no taste for dancing. They regard the amusement as absurd, and refuse to recognise dancing as one of the arts. Music is cultivated. The people recognise the moral value of music, and its strong appeal to human emotions was set forth in the writings of Confucius.
The kiss, which plays such an important part in Western love-making, is an elaborate ritual among the Chinese, who, however, regard our kissing habits as "odious, suggesting voracious cannibals."[1] In China the lips are not applied to the face of the beloved person, but the nose instead, and the breath is drawn through the nostrils. Kissing is not practised in Japan.
Mercenary traffic between the sexes exists in China, and children are sometimes brought up to the trade. Such occupation is often the lot of young widows, who are not allowed to remarry. On the whole, the courtesans in China have a much lower status than the geishas of Japan. The evil results of the system are palpable here as in other parts of the civilised world. There are houses of evil repute in all the large towns.
- ↑ Havelock Ellis, "Sexual Selection in Man."
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