The gods are not only worshipped at the temples, but religious adoration plays an important part in the home life. Over the kitchen stove, in a niche, reposes the household god. From that high place he watches all that goes on within the household. He knows the sins of commission and the sins of omission. Once a year he is taken down and with great ceremony burned and sent up to the Great God to report upon the actions of the household for the year, and a new god is installed in his place. In the meantime he is propitiated in various ways. The first thing in the morning a small bowl of rice and another of water is placed before him, and incense and candles are burned daily at his feet to gain his favour.
Priests are frequent visitors at the homes, and religious ceremonies attend all the great family events, like the first shaving of the baby’s head, or that most important day when the mother attains her fiftieth year. This is a day of general rejoicing, when her children unite and buy the happy mother the greatest and most precious present she can receive—her grave-clothes. They are presented amidst much feasting, and chanting of prayers, and burning of candles and incense, and the mother is congratulated by all her friends for the blessing of such filial children.
The home must have its basis in marriage, and to that important episode in woman’s life the greatest attention is given. In China, as in India, the betrothal ceremony is as binding as the marriage, although I am told that the “new woman” of China is rebelling at the child betrothals and the lack of freedom granted her in the choice of a mate. It is said that in Shanghai a couple who have been betrothed in childhood by their parents, on arriving at marriageable age, may go before a magistrate and repudiate the agreement, and in many instances their cases have been upheld even against the protests of father and mother. This shows the most extreme progressiveness of present-day China, as hitherto a child, especially a girl, was simply a chattel to be disposed of according to the dictates of the nearest male relative. Still, with the exception of the foreign settlement of Shanghai, the old customs of betrothal and marriage prevail, and the principals in the marriage have very little to say in regard to the disposal of their future. Often children are betrothed before their birth by parents, who, being good friends and desiring to unite the families, agree that if a boy is born in one family and a girl in the other, they shall marry. Other matches are made by a professional “go-between,” who is employed by the parents of either the boy or girl to find a suitable alliance for their child. This “go-between” is so thoroughly recognized that the Chinese have a saying, “Without a go-between no happy marriage can be effected.”