Lu Xun - Selected Essays of Master Lu Xun

The world is going to the dogs! Men are growing more degenerate every day!The country is faced with ruin!such laments have been heard in China since time immemorial. But degeneracy varies from age to age. It used to mean one thing, now it means another. Except in memorials to the throne and the like, in which no one dares make wild statements, this is the tone of all written and spoken pronouncements. For not only is such carping good for people; it removes the speaker from the ranks of the degenerate. That gentlemen sigh when they meet is only natural. But now even murderers, incendiaries, libertines, swindlers and other scoundrels shake their heads in the intervals between their crimes and mutter: Men are growing more degenerate every day!

As far as morality goes, inciters to evil are not the only degenerates. So are those who simply condone it, delight in it or deplore it. That is why some men this year have actually not contented themselves with empty talk, but after expressing their horror have looked round for a remedy. The first was Kang Yu-wei. Stamping and sawing the air, he declared constitutional monarchy the panacea. He was refuted by Chen Tu-hsiu, who was followed by the spiritualists who somehow or other hit on the weird idea of inviting the ghost of Mencius to devise a policy for them. However, Chen Pai-nien, Chien Hsuan-tung and Liu Pan-hung swear they are talking nonsense.

Those articles refuting them in New Youth are enough to make anyone's blood run cold. This is the twentieth century, and dawn has already broken on mankind. If New Youth were to carry an article debating whether the earth were square or round, readers would almost certainly sit up. Yet their present arguments are pretty well on a par with contending that the earth is not square. That such a debate should continue today is enough to make anyone's blood run cold!

Though constitutional monarchy is no longer discussed, the spiritualists still seem to be going strong. But they have failed to satisfy another group, who continued to shake their heads and mutter: Men are growing more degenerate every day! These, in fact, have thought up a different remedy, which they call extolling chastity.

For many years now, ever since the failure of the reformists and the call for a return to the past, devices like this have been generally approved:all we are doing now is raising the old banners. Moreover, in step with this, writers and public speakers keep singing the praises of chastity. This is their only way to rise above those who are growing more degenerate every day.

Chastity used to be a virtue for men as well as women, hence the references to chaste gentlemen in our literature. However, the chastity which is extolled today is for women onlymen have no part in it. According to contemporary moralists, a chaste woman is one who does not remarry or run off with a lover after her husband's death, while the earlier her husband dies and the poorer her family the more chaste it is possible for her to be. In addition, there are two other types of chaste woman: one kills herself when her husband or fiancdies; the other manages to commit suicide when confronted by a ravisher, or meets her death while resisting. The more cruel her death, the greater glory she wins. If she kills herself only after being surprised and ravished, there is bound to be talk. She has one chance in ten thousand of finding a generous moralist who may excuse her in view of the circumstances and grant her the title chaste. But no man of letters will want to write her biography and, if forced to, he is sure to end on a note of disapproval.

In short, when a woman's husband dies she should remain single or die. If she meets a ravisher she should also die. When such women are praised, it shows that society is morally sound and there is still hope for China. That is the gist of the matter.

Kang Yu-wei had to use the emperor's name; the spiritualists depend on superstitious nonsense; but up-holding chastity is entirely up to the people. This shows we are coming on. However, there are still some questions I would like to raise, which I shall try to answer according to my own lights. Moreover, since I take it that this idea of saving the world through chastity is held by the majority of my countrymen, those who expound it being merely their spokesmen who voice something which affects the whole body corporate, I am putting my questions and answers before the majority of the people.

My first question is: In what way do unchaste women injure the country? It is only too clear today that the country is faced with ruin. There is no end to the dastardly crimes committed, and war, banditry, famine, flood and drought follow one after the other. But this is owing to the fact that we have no new morality or new science and all our thoughts and actions are out of date. That is why these benighted times resemble the old dark ages. Besides, all government, army, academic and business posts are filled by men, not by unchaste women. And it seems unlikely that the men in power have been so bewitched by such women as to lose all sense of right and wrong and plunge into dissipation. As for flood, drought and famine, they result from a lack of modern knowledge, from worshipping dragons and snakes, cutting down forests and neglecting water conservancythey have even less to do with women. War and banditry, it is true, often produce a crop of unchaste women; but the war and banditry come first, and the unchaste women follow. It is not women's wantonness that causes such troubles.

My second question is: Why should women shoulder the whole responsibility for saving the world? According to the old school, women belong to the yin or negative element. Their place is in the home, as chattels of men. Surely, then, the onus for governing the state and saving the country should rest with the men, who belong to the yang or positive element. How can we burden weak females with such a tremendous task? And according to the moderns, both sexes are equal with roughly the same obligations. Though women have their duties, they should not have more than their share. It is up to the men to play their part as well, not just by combating violence but by exercising their own masculine virtues. It is not enough merely to punish and lecture the women.

My third question is: What purpose is served by upholding chastity? If we grade all the women in the world according to their chastity, we shall probably find they fall into three classes: those who are chaste and should be praised; those who are unchaste; and those who have not yet married or whose husbands are still alive, who have not yet met a ravisher, and whose chastity therefore cannot yet be gauged. The first class is doing very nicely with all these encomiums, so we can pass over it. And the second class is beyond hope, for there has never been any room for repentance in China once a woman has erredshe can only die of shame. This is not worth dwelling on either. The third class, therefore, is the most important. Now that their hearts have been touched, they must have vowed to themselves: If my husband dies, I shall never marry again!If I meet a ravisher, I shall kill myself as fast as ever I can! But what effect, pray, do such decisions have upon public morality which, as pointed out earlier, is determined by men? And here another question arises. These chaste women who have been praised are naturally paragons of virtue. But though all may aspire to be sages, not all can be models of chastity. Some of the women in the third class may have the noblest resolutions, but what if their husbands live to a ripe old age and the world remains at peace? They will just have to suffer in silence, doomed to be second-class citizens all their lives.

So far we have simply used old-world common sense, yet even so we have found much that is contradictory. If we live at all in the twentieth century, two more points will occur to us.