As was the power of the husband over the wife, so was that of the father over his children.  Infanticide (due chiefly to poverty, and varying with it) was frequent, especially in the case of female children, who were but slightly esteemed; the practice prevailing extensively in three or four provinces, less extensively in others, and being practically absent in a large number.  Beyond the fact that some penalties were enacted against it by the Emperor Ch’ien Lung (A.D. 1736-96), and that by statute it was a capital offence to murder children in order to use parts of their bodies for medicine, it was not legally prohibited.  When the abuse became too scandalous in any district proclamations condemning it would be issued by the local officials.  A man might, by purchase and contract, adopt a person as son, daughter, or grandchild, such person acquiring thereby all the rights of a son or daughter.  Descent, both of real and personal property, was to all the sons of wives and concubines as joint heirs, irrespective of seniority.  Bastards received half shares.  Estates were not divisible by the children during the lifetime of their parents or grandparents.

The head of the family being but the life-renter of the family property, bound by fixed rules, wills were superfluous, and were used only where the customary respect for the parents gave them a voice in arranging the details of the succession.  For this purpose verbal or written instructions were commonly given.

In the absence of the father, the male relatives of the same surname assumed the guardianship of the young.  The guardian exercised full authority and enjoyed the surplus revenues of his ward’s estate, but might not alienate the property.

There are many instances in Chinese history of extreme devotion of children to parents taking the form of self-wounding and even of suicide in the hope of curing parents’ illnesses or saving their lives.

Political History

The country inhabited by the Chinese on their arrival from the West was, as we saw, the district where the modern provinces of Shansi, Shensi, and Honan join.  This they extended in an easterly direction to the shores of the Gulf of Chihli—­a stretch of territory about 600 miles long by 300 broad.  The population, as already stated, was between one and two millions.  During the first two thousand years of their known history the boundaries of this region were not greatly enlarged, but beyond the more or less undefined borderland to the south were chou or colonies, nuclei of Chinese population, which continually increased in size through conquest of the neighbouring territory.  In 221 B.C. all the feudal states into which this territory had been parcelled out, and which fought with one another, were subjugated and absorbed by the state of Ch’in, which in that year instituted the monarchical form of government—­the form which obtained in China for the next twenty-one centuries.