Note 6 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

Doolittle’s Social Life of the Chinese, p. 121. Mr. Doolittle refers the tying of the wrists to a different motive. “It is,” he says, “thought that such a tying will tend to keep the child from being troublesome in after life and from meddling with what does not belong to it, just as though he or she was bound. When boys or girls are naughty or troublesome they are often asked if their mammas did not bind their wrists? Implying that if their wrists had been properly bound when an infant they would have been restrained from misconduct in subsequent life.” I am disposed, however, to refer the origin of the custom to the belief I have stated in the text, though the Chinese of to-day may look upon it rather as symbolical than efficacious as regard demons. ↑