Thus, my conscience forces me to utter the following two sentences:
1. All parents who are like the parents of Miss Zhao should be put in prison.
2. May the cry of all humanity fill the heavens, “Long live Miss Zhao!”


The Marriage Question—An Admonition to Young
Men and Women (November 19, 1919)
Three days ago, the Casual Comments section of this paper carried a piece by Mr.
Jiangong, “Those Sacrificed to Reform of the Marriage System.”156 Referring to the
suicide of Miss Zhao, he addressed a warning to parents. It read as follows:
… not all Chinese are deaf and blind. Anyone with even a little tiny bit of conscience
should be thoroughly awakened, and refrain from interfering in the marriages of his
sons and daughters. This young woman did not die for nothing… We must not fail her,
we must not allow the sacrifice of her life to have been in vain.
The words of Mr. Jiangong say half of what must be said, but he left out the other
half. Let me add the following:
Dear young men and women throughout China. None of you are deaf and blind.
Having seen such a tragedy of “blood splattering the city of Changsha,” you must
be stirred to the depths of your souls, and become thoroughly awakened. See to it
that you arrange your own marriages yourselves. The policy of letting parents arrange
everything should absolutely be repudiated. Love is sacred, and absolutely cannot be
arranged by others, cannot be forced, cannot be bought. We must not fail her, we must
not allow the sacrifice of her life to have been in vain.


Readers, what are your views?
The Question of Reforming the Marriage System
(November 19, 1919)
Yesterday, my piece on Mr. Jiangong’s “Those Sacrificed to Reform of the Marriage
System,” and his words on which I was elaborating, offered an appropriate proposal

--- Notes

156 Mr. Jiangong is Long Yi (1888–1951), hao Shouyi, commonly known by his pen-name Long
Jiangong. A native of Xiangtan, Hunan Province, he was at this time one of the three chief editors
(zhubi) of the Dagongbao, then Changsha’s most influential newspaper. In addition to the piece alluded
to here by Mao, entitled “A Victim of the Reform of the Marriage System,” Long wrote two other articles
concerning this incident in the paper. He was very active in the Hunan self-government movement and
was one of the members of the preparatory committee for self-government in October 1920, along with
Mao and Peng Huang.