aws affecting it being only
slightly modified to suit the circumstances of the various tribes by
which it was adopted. The main feature was still the same--the girl had
no choice; there was nothing for her but submission.

The lot of woman in China has, from time immemorial, been a hard one.
Says a writer in the _Westminster Review_ for October, 1855: "Of all
nations, the Chinese carry out the system of early betrothal most
completely; parents in China not only bargain for the marriage of their
children during their infancy, but while they are yet unborn. If, when a
daughter is betrothed during infancy, the contract should not assume the
form of actual sale, it is nevertheless usual for the bridegroom, at the
time he acquires possession of the bride, to pay into the hands of her
father a sum considered equivalent to the current value of a wife."
Immortality is denied to woman by them. A Christian, intent on the
evangelization of the Chinese, spoke to one regarding the salvation of
their women. "Women," replied the Chinaman; "women have no souls. You
can't make Christians of them." Few persons born in civilized lands,
unless brought into immediate contact with the heathen, can have any
idea of the wretched condition of their women, even at this day. Kept in
a state of abject bondage, they are compelled to serve with rigor.
Controlled as though they were possessed of less intelligence than male
children of tender years, it might yet be supposed, from the burdens
laid upon them, that they were possessed of far superior strength,
physically, than men. In some countries--not all of them heathen or
Mohammedan either--the amount of labor imposed upon women of the lower
orders in society would task the strength of beasts of burden. The only
exercise of reason allowed among such, is a sort of instinct which will
enable them to perform all kinds of drudgery, and to act with
scrupulous fidelity to their unkind, very often brutal and _faithless_,
husbands--task-masters would be the better name. Of women under such
rule, it may truly be said, the grave is their best, their only friend.

Among the Arabs, prior to Mohammed, the women were in a wretchedly
debased condition, which has been but slightly improved by the rules of
the Koran. By its sanction, wives were bought by their husbands, though
it was asserted that it was not lawful for men to exchange their wives.
The price paid by Mohammed for his wives, of which he had nine, varie