this event is often delayed until thirty. The
rich often marry as early as fifteen. The age
of marriage with women of the lower orders, is
from seventeen to twenty. These ages, it will
be observed, are later than in most other Asiatic
countries, and show that, in Cochin China, prudence,
or at least necessity, has some influence in
checking the increase of population. Polygamy
is of course permitted to any ex ten t; for, in Cochin
China, marriage is a state of mere convenience
to the men, and the wife or wives are
little better than the chattels of the husband.
The first espoused, being usually a person of equal
or superior rank, is looked upon as the real wife;
and the succeeding ones, persons of inferior condition,
little better than her handmaids. A young
woman cannot be married by her parents contrary
to her inclination. Marriages are indissoluble, except
by the mutual consent of the parties. Before
marriage, the young Cochin Chinese women
are allowed the most perfect liberty, or rather licence.
A breach of the laws of chastity, on their
part, is considered no offence ; nor, it is said, even
an obstacle to a matrimonial connexion. When
an unmarried woman is discovered to be pregnant,
the lover is inquired for, generally acknowledges
himself, and marries her ; getting her at a
price under the common rate. Should her pregnancy
prove a matter of inconvenience, the bringing
on of an abortion by secret means is not
viewed among this gross people as criminal. In fanticide,
however, so frequent among the teeming
population of China, is scarcely known in
Cochin China; and when it does occur, it is viewed
as a crime. The matrimonial knot once tied,
there is an end to the liberty of the female sex.
By the laws of Cochin China, the punishment of
adultery is death to both the offending parties;
often, however, commuted into severe corporal
punishment. This law shows that it is not the
moral offence, but the invasion o f property, which
is the object of punishment. The Cochin Chinese
women are not immured as in most countries of
Western Asia; but they are not the more respected
on this account; on the contrary, they
are treated with rigour or neglect, as if it were
not worth while watching them. A Cochin Chinese
husband may by law inflict upon his wife
the severest corporal punishment, short of life,
without being called to any account. We were
ourselves witnesses to several specimens of this
discipline. While our ship lay at the village of
Candyu, one of our gentlemen saw a very decided
case of this nature, in the person of a young woman
of twenty-four or twenty-five years of age.
She was thrown down upon her face in the usual
manner, and a man and woman held her, while a
brute of the male sex, believed to be her husband,