Only a few days before the penning of these lines a man named Shih Kuan-yung came to report to me the mysterious death of his younger brother. "His wife treated him shamefully," was the story. "He bore it for several years, but the breaking-point came two days ago. He then went off to his father-in-law's house, and yesterday he died there." On inquiry it turned out that the wretched man, after an unusually bitter passage of words with his wife, swallowed a dose of poison and then went off to die in his wife's father's house as a protest against his wife's bad conduct and as a sure means of bringing trouble upon her relations. His brother suggested to the court that he, as the deceased's only surviving relative, should be empowered to sell the widow and pocket the proceeds as a solace for his bereavement. The court refused to act upon this suggestion, but satisfied public opinion by imposing a moderate punishment on the lady's family and compelling it to defray all the expenses of the funeral.
The fact that the husband in this case could think of no better means of punishing his wife than by dying on her father's doorstep shows that though a woman on marriage theoretically passes from one _patria potestas_ to another and thenceforward belongs solely to her husband's family or _p'o chia_, her father's family or _niang-chia_ may in certain circumstances retain considerable influence over her destiny as a married woman; and if the family is rich and influential it may make matters intensely disagreeable for the husband and his relations should the woman find her new home less comfortable than the old one. The woman whose _niang-chia_ is poor and without influence (as we have seen in the case of a _t'uan-yüan hsi-fu_) rarely dares to hold her head high or treat her _p'o chia_ with contempt. She knows that henceforth it will be to her own interest to please her husband and his parents as far as in her lies, for she can look for no help from her father's family in the event of trouble. It is a terrible grief to a young married woman to know that her own family has made up its mind to take no further interest in her. A headman once reported to me that a woman in his village, recently married, had committed suicide simply because when the time came for her to pay the first ceremonial visit to her father and mother after her wedding, no one was sent (in accordance with the usual custom) from her old home to escort her thither. For several days she moped and moaned, her incessant cry being, "I have no _niang-chia_, I have no _niang-chia_"; and one day her husband found her hanging dead from a peg in the wall.