Free Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco by Judy Yung Page B

for prostitutes than for wives.87 Nevertheless, like organized
prostitution, the mui tsai system had all but vanished by the 192os thanks
to the efforts of missionary women and Chinese social reformers intent
on modernizing Chinatown-this in a country, it should be noted, where
slavery had been abolished in 1865 and contract labor in 1885.

    THE SHELTERED LIVES OF IMMIGRANT WIVES
    Between 187o and 188o, the percentage of Chinese
women in San Francisco who were prostitutes had declined from 71 to
5o percent, while the percentage of women who were married had increased from approximately 8 to 49 percent, most likely owing to the
enforcement of antiprostitution measures, the arrival of wives from
China, and the marriage of ex-prostitutes to Chinese laborers. The number of wives continued to rise after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, when merchant wives became the prime category of
female immigrants from China. By the turn of the century, married
women made up 6z percent of the Chinese female population in San
Francisco. 88
    Within the patriarchal structure of San Francisco Chinatown, immigrant wives occupied a higher status than mui tsai and prostitutes, but
they too were considered the property of men and constrained to lead
bound lives. Members of the merchant class, capitalizing on miners' and
labor crews' need for provisions and services, were among the first Chinese to come to California. They were also the only Chinese who were
allowed to and who could afford to bring their wives and families, or to
establish second families in America.89 In the absence of the scholargentry class, which chose not to emigrate, the merchant class became
the ruling elite in Chinatown, and their families formed the basis for the
growth of the Chinese American population and the formation of the
middle class.
    Referred to as "small-foot" or "lily-feet" women in nineteenthcentury writings because of their bound feet, most merchant wives led
the cloistered life of genteel women. They generally had servants and
did not need to work for wages or be burdened by the daily household
chores of cooking, laundering, and cleaning. Rather, they spent their
leisure hours prettying up or creating needlework designs, to be used as
presents to distant relatives or as ornamentation for their own apparel
and that of family members. Sui Seen Far, a noted California writer in
the late nineteenth century, described their lives this way:

    The Chinese woman in America lives generally in the upstairs apartments of her husband's dwelling. He looks well after her comfort and
provides all her little mind can wish.... She seldom goes out, and does
not receive visitors until she has been a wife for at least two years. Even
then, if she has no child, she is supposed to hide herself. After a child has
been born to her, her wall of reserve is lowered a little, and it is proper
for cousins and friends of her husband to drop in occasionally and have
a chat with "the family."
    Now and then the women visit one another.... They laugh at the
most commonplace remark and scream at the smallest trifle; they examine one another's dresses and hair, talk about their husbands, their babies, their food; squabble over little matters and make up again; they dine
on bowls of rice, minced chicken, bamboo shoots and a dessert of candied fruits.90
    At least one merchant wife in San Francisco Chinatown did not view
her life so positively, though. "Poor me!" she told a white reporter. "In
China I was shut up in the house since I was io years old, and only left
my father's house to be shut up in my husband's house in this great country. For seventeen years I have been in this house without leaving it save
on two evenings."" To pass her time, she worshiped at the family altar,
embroidered, looked after her son, played cards with her servant, or chatted with her Chinese neighbors. Periodically, her hairdresser would come
to do her hair, or a