Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	child_n	great_a	parent_n	1,520	5	8.2359	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48403	A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam by Monsieur De La Loubere ... ; done out of French, by A.P. Gen. R.S.S.; Du royaume de Siam. English	La Loubère, Simon de, 1642-1729.; A. P.	1693 (1693)	Wing L201; ESTC R5525	377,346	277

great Wife and then for her Children who inherit from their Parents by equal Portions The little Wives and their Children may be sold by the Heir and they have only what the Heir gives them or what the Father before his death has given them from hand to hand for the Siameses know not the use of Wills The Daughter 's born of the little Wives are sold to be themselves little Wives and the most powerful purchasing the handsomest without having any regard to the Parents from whom they descend do after this manner make very unequal Alliances and those with whom they make them do not thereby acquire any more Honour or Protection Wherein consists the Fortune of a Siamese The Estate of the Siameses consist chiefly in Moveables If they have Lands they have not much by reason they cannot obtain the full Property thereof It belongs always to their King who at his pleasure takes away the Lands which he has sold to particular persons and who frequently takes them again without returning the value Nevertheless the Law of the Country is that Lands should be hereditary in Families and that particular persons may sell them one to another But this Prince has regard only to this Law as far as it suits him because it cannot prejudice his Demesnes which generally extend over all that his Subjects possess This is the Reason that they get as few Immoveables as they can and that they always endeavor to conceal their Moveables from the knowledge of their Kings and because that Diamonds are Moveables the most easie to hide and transport they are mightily sought after at Siam and in all India and they sell them very dear Sometimes the Indian Lords do at their death give part of their Estate to the King their Master to secure the rest to their Family and this generally succeeds The Families are almost all happy at Siam A Divorce as may be judged by the Fidelity of the Wives in nourishing their Husband whilst he serves the King A Service which by a kind of Oppression lasts not only six Months in a Year but sometimes one two and three Years together But when the Husband and Wife cannot support one another they have the remedy of Divorce 'T is true that it is in practice only amongst the Populace the Rich who have several Wives do equally keep those they love not and those they love The Husband is naturally the Master of the Divorce What are the Laws thereof but he never refuseth it to his Wife when she absolutely desires it He restores her Portion to her and their Children are divided amongst them in this manner The Mother has the first the third the fifth and so all the odd ones The Father has the second fourth sixth and all the even ones Hence it happens that if there is no more than one Child it is for the Mother and that if the number of Children is unequal the Mother has one more whether that they judge the Mother would take more care thereof than the Father or that having born them in her womb or nourished them with her milk she seems to have a greater Right therein than the Father or that being weaker she has more need of the succor of her Children than he After the Divorce And the Consequences it is lawful for the Husband and Wife to marry again with whom they please and it is free for the Woman to do it in the very day of the Divorce they not troubling themselves with the Doubt that may thence arise touching the Father of the first Child that may be born after the second Marriage They rely on what the Wife says thereof a great sign of the little Jealousie of this People But tho' the Divorce be permitted them yet they consider it as a very great Evil and as the almost certain Ruine of the Children which are ordinarily very ill treated in the second Marriages of their Parents So that this is one of the Causes assigned why the Country is not populous altho' the Siameses are fruitful and do very frequently bring Twins The power of the Husband is despotical in his Family Of the Paternal Power even to the selling his Children and Wives his principal Wife excepted whom he can only repudiate The Widows inherit the power of their Husbands with this restriction that they cannot sell the Children which they have of the even number if the Father's Relations oppose it for the Children dare not After the Divorce the Father and Mother may each sell the Children which fell to them by lot according to the Division I have mentioned But the Parents cannot kill their Children nor the Husband his Wives by reason that in general all Murder is prohibited at Siam The Love of free persons is not ignominious at least amongst the Populace Amorous Conversations It is there look'd upon as a Marriage and Incontinency as a Divorce Nevertheless the Parents do carefully watch their Daughters as I have said and Children are no where permitted to dispose of themselves to the prejudice of the paternal Power which is the most natural of all Laws Moreover the Siameses are naturally too proud easily to give themselves to Foreigners or at least to invite them The Peguins which are at Siam as being Strangers themselves do more highly esteem of Foreigners and do pass for debauched persons in the minds of those who understand not that they seek a Husband Thus they continue faithful until they are abandon'd and if they prove big with Child they are not less esteem'd amongst those of their Nation and they do even glory in having had a white Man for a Husband It may be also that they are of a more amorous Complexion than the Siameses they have at least more spirit and briskness 'T is an established opinion in the Indies that the people have more or less vigor and spirit according as they are nearer or remoter from Pegu. CHAP. VIII Of the Education of the Siamese Children and first of their Civility The love of the Siamese Children for their Parents THE Siamese Children have docility and sweetness provided they be not discountenanc'd Their Parents know how to make themselves extreamly beloved and respected and to inspire an extream Civility in them Their Instructions are marvellously assisted by the Despotic Power which I have said they have in their Family but the Parents do also answer unto the Prince for the Faults of their Children They share in their Chastisements and more especially are obliged to deliver them up when they have offended And tho' the Son be fled he never fails to return and surrender himself when the Prince apprehends his Father or his Mother or his other collateral Relations but older than himself and to whom he owes Respect And this is a great proof of the love of the Siamese Children to their Parents Civility necessary to the Siameses As to Civility it is so great

Vice-Roy of Canton who being poysoned himself and feeling the approach of Death called her whom he loved the best of his Wives and desired her to follow him which she did by hanging herself so soon as he was dead But certainly neither the Chineses nor the Tonquineses nor the Siameses The Oeconomy of the Chineses and of their Neighbors in Burials nor the other Indians beyond the Ganges have ever as it is known received the Custom of permitting the Women to burn and moreover they have by a wise Oeconomy established that instead of real Furniture and Money it should suffice to burn with the dead bodies those very things delineated in paper cut and oftentimes painted or gilded under pretence in my opinion that in matter of Types those of the things in Paper were as good as those of the things themselves which the Paper represents Wherefore the People report that this Paper which is burnt is converted in the other Life to the things which it represents The richest Chineses cease not to burn at least some real Stuffs and they burn moreover so much Paper that this expence alone is considerable But all these Oriental People do not only believe that they may be helpful to the dead as I have already explained The power of the Dead over the Living the Source of the worship of the Dead they think also that the dead have the power of tormenting and succouring the living and from hence comes their Care and Magnificence in Funerals for it is only in this that they are magnificent Hence it comes also that they pray to the dead and especially the Manes of their Ancestors to the Great-Grand-Father or to the Great-Great-Grand-Father presuming that the rest are so dispersed by divers Transmigrations that they can hear them no more The Romans likewise prayed to their dead Ancestors tho they believed them not to be Gods Thus Germanicus in Tacitus at the beginning of a military expedition besought the Manes of his Father Drusus to render it happy because that Drusus himself had made war in that Country They fear only their dead Acquaintance But by a prevention which I see diffused likewise among the Christians that are afraid of Spirits the Orientals neither expect nor fear any thing from the dead of foreign Countries but from the dead of their City or of their Quarter or of their Profession or of their Family CHAP. XX. Of the Burials of the Chineses and Siameses The Reason of speaking of the Burials of the Chineses THE Burials of the Chineses are described in several Relations but I shall not forbear speaking a word thereof to render those of the Siameses more intelligible because that the Customs of a Country do always better illustrate themselves by the comparison of the Customs of the neighbouring Countries What are the Principal Circumstances thereof The first care of the Chineses in Burials is to have a Coffin of precious Wood in which they do sometimes make an expence above their Fortune and though they bury their bodies without burning them they forbear not at their Interment to burn Goods Houses Animals Money and whatever is necessary to the Conveniences of Life but all in Paper except some real Stuffs which are burnt at the Funerals of the rich Father Semedo reports that at the Burial of a Queen of China her goods were really burnt The second care of the Chineses in Burials is to chuse out a place proper for the Tomb. They chuse it according to the advice of the Soothsayers imagining that the repose of the deceased depends on this choice and that of the felicity and repose of the living depends on the repose of the dead If therefore they are not the Proprietors of the place declared by the Soothsayers they fail not to buy it and sometimes dearly And in the third place besides the Funeral Train which is great they give magnificent entertainments to the dead person not only when they bury him but annually on the same day and several times in the year The worship of the Dead In their House they have a Chamber designed for the Manes of their Ancestors where from time to time they go to render the same Devotions to their Figure as they render'd to their Body in interring it They do again burn Perfumes Stuffs and cut Papers and they do make them new repasts The Tonquineses according to Father de Rhodes do intermix these sorts of repasts with Paper-meats which they burn The same Author very largely relates the Prayers which the Tonquineses make to the dead how they demand of them a long and happy Life with what zeal they redouble their Worship and Prayers in their Misfortunes when the Soothsayers assure them that they ought to attribute the cause thereof to the Anger of their Parents The Chineses at present are entirely impious Several Relations of China assert that the learned men which in this Country are the most important Citizens do consider the Ceremonies of Funerals only as civil Duties to which they add no Prayers That at present they have not any sense of Religion and do not believe the existence of any God nor the Immortality of the Soul and that tho they render unto Confucius an exterior Worship in the Temples which are consecrated to him yet they demand not of him the Knowledge which the learned Men of Tonquin demand of him The Doctrine of the Ancient Chineses on the worship of the Dead and that it is very probable that they never prayed to the dead in Funerals But whether the Funerals which the learned Chineses do make for their Parents be without Prayers or not it is certain that the ancient Spirit of the Doctrine of the Chineses was to believe the Immortality of the Soul to expect good and evil from the dead and to address some Prayers unto them if not in Burials at least in the disgraces of Life to attract their protection Moreover what opinion soever they have had of the Power of the dead to succor the living it is very probable that they thought that the dead were in need at the moment of the Burial that is to say in the Entrance and Establishment of another Life and that it then belonged to the living to succor the dead and not to demand succor of them But it is time to relate what the Funerals of the Siameses are The Burials of the Siameses So soon as a man is dead his body is shut up in a wooden Coffin which is varnished and gilded on the outside and as the Varnish of Siam is not so good as that of China and hinders not the stench of the dead body from passing through the cracks of the Coffin they endeavour at least to consume the Intestines of the dead with Mercury which they pour into his Mouth and which they say comes out at the Fundament They sometimes make use also of Leaden Coffins and sometimes also