The decline o f the silk industry was attributed to a number o f domestic and interna tional factors. As early as in the 1880s, the problem o f silkworm disease already posed a potential threat to the sericulture industry. However, the problem became acute in the beginning o f 1920 when 90 per cent o f cocoons in China were inflicted by the pebrine disease and about 75 per cent o f the silkworms hatched died before reaching the spinning
41 Diane Lauren Wolf, Factory Daughters: Gender, Household Dynamics, and Rural
Industrialization in Java, Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1992, p. 27. There seems to be an interesting parallel between the prototype Cantonese and the contemporary Taiwanese factory daughters who postpone their marriages in order to lengthen the duration o f their work penods. See Lydia Kung,
Factory Women in Taiwan, Studies in Cultural Anthropology, No. 5, Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983.
42 A girls' house could cater for 8 to 10 residents at a time and residents have to pay a small fee for the accommodation. For further details on girls' houses, see Stockard, Daughters o f the Canton Delta,
pp. 73-4, 82-3. For a comparison o f girls’ houses and boys’ houses in Guangdong, see Topley, “Marriage Resistance,” pp. 73-4.
61 stage.43 A 1927 survey taken in Guangdong showed that 60 per cent o f the cocoons were affected by the d isease.44 As a result, one ounce o f good silkworms that would normally yield 110-130 pounds of cocoons, would yield only 15-25 pounds after the silkworms were affected by the disease.45 Thus, the deterioration in silkworm quality that drastically reduced the quantity o f cocoon production, also resulted in filatures producing inferior silk as a means o f cutting the rising costs o f production.
Significantly, the Chinese silk industry failed to rival the intense competition from the Japanese silk industry for the supply o f raw silk in world market. Technical innovations and structural support from the government for the sericulture industry, ensured that the Japanese raw silk market had the competitive edge over the Chinese. Moreover, the low prices o f Japanese cocoons also ensured a higher productivity in silk production compared to the higher priced Chinese cocoons. The ability o f Japanese silk manufacturers to expand their production at lower costs due to higher silk yields ultimately consolidated Japan's position as the world's leading supplier o f raw silk.
Increasing use o f imported rayon as a substitute for the more expensive raw silk in modem Chinese weaving mills, also resulted in the decline o f domestic consumption o f raw silk. The shift from raw silk to rayon was not confined to China alone, but rather, it reflected the worldwide trend of synthetic preferences to that o f natural fibres. The world depression o f the 1930s severely affected many commodity trades due to a contraction in the purchasing power and demand o f international market leaders.46 The fall in world demand for raw silk also resulted in the declining prices o f silk and the total exports of raw silk in China.
Filatures were forced to cease silk production, and the price o f cocoons tumbled from
43Eng, Economic Imperialism, p 128 44Ibid.,p. 31.
45Ibid. “Ibid.p. 157.
two yuan in 1932 to thirty cents in 1934 in G uangdong.47 More than 107,000 silk and sericulture workers, the majority o f whom were women, lost their means o f livelihood in 1932.48 Many single women and young men, migrated to urban centres such as Canton and Shanghai in search o f employment. In Shunde alone, where as many as 200,000 female workers were retrenched from the silk filatures.49 Many o f them resorted to migrate to nearby places such as Macao and Hong Kong while some chose to leave their villages for Southeast Asian countries like Malaya, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Nevertheless, not all the women who were affected by the decline in the silk industry left their villages for other places. Some migrated with their families to larger cities in the northern states in anticipation o f the impending Japanese occupation o f Canton. Fears of social dislocation and sexual exploitation o f young unmarried women forced many of them to seek sanctuary in vegetarian halls see Chapter 6) and Buddhist nunneries during the Japanese occupation o f Canton in 1938. Others who were single or were unhappily m arried saw, in the midst o f political and economic upheavals, an opportunity to sever their marital commitments, most likely in the guise o f looking for alternative employment overseas.
4.5 Conclusion
The development o f variant forms o f marriage resistance was closely linked to the commercialization o f sericulture and the subsequent rural industrialization o f the silk industry in the Pearl River Delta. References to early anti-marital conceptions in Gray’s study cited the examples o f young Cantonese maidens who resorted to the radical measures o f becoming Buddhist or Taoist nuns, or even collective suicide, in order to avoid matrimony.51 As late as the 1870s, suicide remained the desperate alternative way
47Ibid.,p. 159.
48Ibid.,p. 158.
49Ibid.,p. 160.
5tTopley, “Marriage Resistance,” p. 85.
5'The remains o f fifteen young maidens who committed suicide en masse after learning that they were betrothed to be married, were interred m The Tomb o f die Virgins that was located in the town o f
out for young women who refused marriage altogether although the practice o f delayed cohabitation in the husband’s home remained a customary feature in many villages.52 By then, sericulture had given women an avenue to work outside the households as seasonal hired labour. The expansion o f sericulture and industrialization in the silk industry between the years 1880s and 1920s, had resulted in female labour being extensively m obilized for employment and women had access to relatively high, regular wages. Personal marital autonomy gradually increased as more and more o f these womenwere drawn into paid employment. High earnings had enabled female silk workers to contribute substantially to household revenues and retain a portion o f their incomes for themselves. This, in turn, decreased the economic dependence o f daughters and daughters-in-law on their families and heightened the spirit o f independence in women.
The economic value o f female labour in the silk industry, as an indispensable income contributor in a household, was an important causal factor in extending a woman's marital or postmarital autonomy. An unattached daughter, who demonstrated the ability to support her family and herself independently, could leave her parental household and become an avowed spinster. And a bridedaughter who was economically self-sufficient, could either prolong the postmarital separation up to a period o f ten years before settling in with her husband's family, or arrange a compensation marriage without comprising her position as a principal wife. The latter was a costly solution for the non-conforming bridedaughters. Hence, compensation marriage was a less popular and limited alternative.
Young, working unmarried women who resisted marriage and yet were not willing to totally give up their personal and economic independence, settled instead for the option o f spinsterhood. The nature o f filature work provided a catalyst for the natural process of disassociation from the natal family and subsequently, the decision by the working daughters to remain unwed throughout their lives. Sankar suggested that prolonged periods o f absence from home to work in outside filature centres, the social cohesion forged as a result o f living together in the same dormitories and long working hours in the same filature, and a common desire to earn a livelihood out o f economic necessity all
Foshan. See Gray, China, p. 185.
64 reinforced the notion o f individual independence and hence, antimarital bias.53 The emergence o f sworn spinsterhood was thus the cultural outgrowth o f a combination o f factors such as the structural changes in the silk industry and the feminization o f labour in filature work. Both these factors contributed to the expansion o f women's earning power and their role as the chief income contributors in peasant households. Where marriage is concerned, however, all the years o f contributing financially to household incomes did not enhance the authority or rights o f the daughters in decision making roles. Nonetheless, it gave them room to negotiate for other alternatives such as spinsterhood.
The decline o f the silk industry due to domestic factors in the 1920s, and in the wake o f the world depression in the 1930s, caused many spinsters and bridedaughters to emigrate overseas. These women fled in large numbers to cities that offered them employment opportunities. Other factors that facilitated the option o f emigration will be explained in the following chapter.
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