wholly an evil or a necessarily harmful thing. It has its advantages
and rewards as well as its dangers and evils. The existence of
hero-worship in any land reveals a nature in the people that is
capable of heroic actions. Men appreciate and admire that which in a
measure at least they are, and more that which they aspire to become.
The recent war revealed how the capacity for heroism of a warlike
nature lies latent in every Japanese breast and not in the descendants
of the old military class alone. But it is more encouraging to note
that popular appreciation of moral heroes is growing.
Education and religion are bringing forth modern moral heroes. The
late Dr. Neesima, the founder of the Doshisha, is a hero to many even
outside the Church. Mr. Ishii, the father of Orphan Asylums in Japan,
promises to be another. A people that can rear and admire men of this
character has in it the material of a truly great nation.
The hero-worshiping characteristic of the Japanese depends on two
other traits of their nature. The first is the reality of strong
personalities among them capable of becoming heroes; the second is the
possession of a strong idealizing tendency. Prof. G.T. Ladd has called
them a "sentimental" people, in the sense that they are powerfully
moved by sentiment. This is a conspicuous trait of their character
appearing in numberless ways in their daily life. The passion for
group-photographs is largely due to this. Sentimentalism, in the sense
given it by Prof. Ladd, is the emotional aspect of idealism.
The new order of society is reacting on the older ideal of a hero and
is materially modifying it. The old-fashioned samurai, girded with two
swords, ready to kill a personal foe at sight, is now only the ideal
of romance. In actual life he would soon find himself deprived of his
liberty and under the condemnation not only of the law, but also of
public opinion. The new ideal with which I have come into most
frequent contact is far different. Many, possibly the majority, of the
young men and boys with whom I have talked as to their aim in life,
have said that they desired to secure first of all a thorough
education, in order that finally they might become great "statesmen"
and might guide the nation into paths of prosperity and international
power. The modern hero is one who gratifies the patriotic passion by
bringing some marked success to the nation. He must be a gentleman,
educated in science, in history, and in foreign languages; but above
all, he must be versed in political economy and law. This new ideal of
a national hero has been brought in by the order of society, and in
proportion as this order continues, and emphasis continues to be laid
on mental and moral power, rather than on rank or official position,
on the intrinsic rather than on the accidental, will the old ideal
fade away and the new ideal take its place. Among an idealizing and
emotional people, such as the Japanese, various ideals will naturally
find extreme expression. As society grows complex also and its various
elements become increasingly differentiated, so will the ideals pass
through the same transformations. A study of ideals, therefore, serves
several ends; it reveals the present character of those whose ideals
they are; it shows the degree of development of the social organism in
which they live; it makes known, likewise, the degree of the
differentiation that has taken place between the various elements of
the nation.
VIII
LOVE FOR CHILDREN
An aspect of Japanese life widely remarked and praised by foreign
writers is the love for children. Children's holidays, as the third
day of the third moon and the fifth day of the fifth moon, are general
celebrations for boys and girls respectively, and are observed with
much gayety all over the land. At these times the universal aim is to
please the children; the girls have dolls and the exhibition of
ancestral dolls; while the boys have toy paraphernalia of all the
ancient and modern forms of warfare, and enormous wind-inflated paper
fish, symbols of prosperity and success, fly from tall bamboos in the
front yard. Contrary to the prevailing opinion among foreigners, these
festivals have nothing whatever to do with birthday celebrations. In
addition to special festivals, the children figure conspicuously in
all holidays and merry-makings. To the famous flower-festival
celebrations, families go in groups and make an all-day picnic of the
joyous occasion.
The Japanese fondness for children is seen not only at festival times.
Parents seem always ready to provide their children with toys. As a
consequence toy stores flourish. There is hardly a street without its
store.
A still further reason for the impression that the Japanese are
especially fond of their children is the slight amount of punishment
and reprimand which they administer. The children seem to have nearly
everything their own way. Playing on the streets, they are always in
evidence and are given the right of way.
That Japanese show much affection for their children is clear. The
question of importance, however, is whether they have it in a marked
degree, more, for instance, than Americans? And if so, is this due to
their nature, or may it be attributed to their family life as molded
by the social order? It is my impression that, on the whole, the
Japanese do not show more affection for their children than
Occidentals, although they may at first sight appear to do so. Among
the laboring classes of the %est, the father, as a rule, is away from
home all through the hours of the day, working in shop or factory. He
seldom sees his children except upon the Sabbath. Of course, the
father has then very little to do with their care or education, and
little opportunity for the manifestation of affection. In Japan,
however, the industrial organization of society is still such that the
father is at home a large part of the time. The factories are few as
yet; the store is usually not separate from the home, but a part of
it, the front room of the house. Family life is, therefore, much less
broken in upon by the industrial necessities of civilization, and
there are accordingly more opportunities for the manifestation of the
father's affection for the children. Furthermore, the laboring-people
in Japan live much on the street, and it is a common thing to see the
father caring for children. While I have seldom seen a father with an
infant tied to his back, I have frequently seen them with their infant
sons tucked into their bosoms, an interesting sight. This custom gives
a vivid impression of parental affection. But, comparing the middle
classes of Japan and the West, it is safe to say that, as a whole, the
Western father has more to do by far in the care and education of the
children than the Japanese father, and that there is no less of
fondling and playing with children. If we may judge the degree of
affection by the signs of its demonstrations, we must pronounce the
Occidental, with his habits of kissing and embracing, as far and away
more affectionate than his Oriental cousin. While the Occidental may
not make so much of an occasion of the advent of a son as does the
Oriental, he continues to remember the birthdays of all his children
with joy and celebrations, as the Oriental does not. Although the
Japanese invariably say, when asked about it, that they celebrate
their children's birthdays, the uniform experience of the foreigner
is that birthday celebrations play a very insignificant part in the
joys and the social life of the home.
It is not difficult to understand why, apart from the question of
affection, the Japanese should manifest special joy on the advent of
sons, and particularly of a first son. The Oriental system of
ancestral worship, with the consequent need, both religious and
political, of maintaining the family line, is quite enough to account
for all the congratulatory ceremonies customary on the birth of sons.
The fact that special joy is felt and manifested on the birth of sons,
and less on the birth of daughters, clearly shows that the dominant
conceptions of the social order have an important place in determining
even so fundamental a trait as affection for offspring.
Affection for children is, however, not limited to the day of their
birth or the period of their infancy. In judging of the relative
possession by different races of affection for children, we must ask
how the children are treated during all their succeeding years. It
must be confessed that the advantage is then entirely on the side of
the Occidental. Not only does this appear in the demonstrations of
affection which are continued throughout childhood, often even
throughout life, but more especially in the active parental solicitude
for the children's welfare, striving to fit them for life's duties and
watching carefully over their mental and moral education. In these
respects the average Occidental is far in advance of the average
Oriental.
I have been told that, since the coming in of the new civilization and
the rise of the new ideas about woman, marriage, and home, there is
clearly observable to the Japanese themselves a change in the way in
which children are being treated. But, even still, the elder son takes
the more prominent place in the affection of the family, and sons
precede daughters.
A fair statement of the case, therefore, is somewhat as follows: The
lower and laboring classes of Japan seem to have more visible
affection for their children than the same classes in the Occident.
Among the middle and upper classes, however, the balance is in favor
of the West. In the East, while, without doubt, there always has been
and is now a pure and natural affection, it is also true that this
natural affection has been more mixed with utilitarian considerations
than in the West. Christian Japanese, however, differ little from
Christian Americans in this respect. The differences between the East
and the West are largely due to the differing industrial and family
conditions induced by the social order.
The correctness of this general statement will perhaps be better
appreciated if we consider in detail some of the facts of Japanese
family life. Let us notice first the very loose ties, as they seem to
us, holding the Japanese family together. It is one of the constant
wonders to us Westerners how families can break up into fragments, as
they constantly do. One third of the marriages end in divorce; and in
case of divorce, the children all stay with the father's family. It
would seem as if the love of the mother for her children could not be
very strong where divorce under such a condition is so common. Or,
perhaps, it would be truer to say that divorce would be far more
frequent than it is but for the mother's love for her children. For I
am assured that many a mother endures most distressing conditions
rather than leave her children. Furthermore, the way in which parents
allow their children to leave the home and then fail to write or
communicate with them, for months or even years at a time, is
incomprehensible if the parental love were really strong. And still
further, the way in which concubines are brought into the home,
causing confusion and discord, is a very striking evidence of the lack
of a deep love on the part of the father for the mother of his
children and even for his own legitimate children. One would expect a
father who really loved his children to desire and plan for their
legitimacy; but the children by his concubines are not "ipso facto"
recognized as legal. One more evidence in this direction is the
frequency of adoption and of separation. Adoption in Japan is largely,
though by no means exclusively, the adoption of an adult; the cases
where a child is adopted by a childless couple from love of children
are rare, as compared with similar cases in the United States, so far,
at least, as my observation goes. I recently heard of a conversation
on personal financial matters between a number of Christian
evangelists. After mutual comparisons they agreed that one of their
number was more fortunate than the rest in that he did not have to
support his mother. On inquiring into the matter, the missionary
learned that this evangelist, on becoming a Buddhist priest many years
before, had secured from the government, according to the laws of the
land, exemption from this duty. When he became a Christian it did not
seem to occur to him that it was his duty and his privilege to support
his indigent mother. I may add that this idea has since occurred to
him and he is acting upon it.
Infanticide throws a rather lurid light on Japanese affection. First,
in regard to the facts: Mr. Ishii's attention was called to the need
of an orphan asylum by hearing how a child, both of whose parents had
died of cholera, was on the point of being buried alive with its dead
mother by heartless neighbors when it was rescued by a fisherman.
Certain parts of Japan have been notorious from of old for this
practice. In Tosa the evil was so rampant that a society for its
prevention has been in existence for many years. It helps support
children of poor parents who might be tempted to dispose of them
criminally. In that province from January to March, 1898, I was told
that "only" four cases of conviction for this crime were reported. The
registered annual birth rate of certain villages has increased from
40-50 to 75-80, and this without any immigration from outside. The
reason assigned is the diminution of infanticide.
In speaking of infanticide in Japan, let us not forget that every race
and nation has been guilty of the same crime, and has continued to be
guilty of it until delivered by Christianity.
Widespread infanticide proves a wide lack of natural affection.
Poverty is, of course, the common plea. Yet infanticide has been
practiced not so much by the desperately poor as by small
land-holders. The amount of farming land possessed by each family was
strictly limited and could feed only a given number of mouths. Should
the family exceed that number, all would be involved in poverty, for
the members beyond that limit did not have the liberty to travel in
search of new occupation. Infanticide, therefore, bore direct relation
to the rigid economic nature of the old social order.
Whatever, therefore, be the point of view from which we study the
question of Japanese affection for children, we see that it was
intimately connected with the nature of the social order. Whether we
judge such affection or its lack to be a characteristic trait of
Japanese nature, we must still maintain that it is not an inherent
trait of the race nature, but only a characteristic depending for its
greater or less development on the nature of the social order.
IX
MARITAL LOVE
If the Japanese are a conspicuously emotional race, as is commonly
believed, we should naturally expect this characteristic to manifest
itself in a marked degree in the relation of the sexes. Curiously
enough, however, such does not seem to be the case. So slight a place
does the emotion of sexual love have in Japanese family life that some
have gone to the extreme of denying it altogether. In his brilliant
but fallacious volume, entitled "The Soul of the Far East," Mr.
Percival Lowell states that the Japanese do not "fall in love." The
correctness of this statement we shall consider in connection with the
argument for Japanese impersonality. That "falling in love" is not a
recognized part of the family system, and that marriage is arranged
regardless not only of love, but even of mutual acquaintance, are
indisputable facts.
Let us confine our attention here to Japanese post-marital emotional
characteristics. Do Japanese husbands love their wives and wives their
husbands? We have already seen that in the text-book for Japanese
women, the "Onna Daigaku," not one word is said about love. It may be
stated at once that love between husband and wife is almost as
conspicuously lacking in practice as in precept. In no regard,
perhaps, is the contrast between the East and the West more striking
than the respective ideas concerning woman and marriage. The one
counts woman the equal, if not the superior of man; the other looks
down upon her as man's inferior in every respect; the one considers
profound love as the only true condition of marriage; the other thinks
of love as essentially impure, beneath the dignity of a true man, and
not to be taken into consideration when marriage is contemplated; in
the one, the two persons most interested have most to say in the
matter; in the other, they have the least to say; in the one, a long
and intimate previous acquaintance is deemed important; in the other,
the need for such an acquaintance does not receive a second thought;
in the one, the wife at once takes her place as the queen of the home;
in the other, she enters as the domestic for her husband and his
parents; in the one, the children are hers as well as his; in the
other, they are his rather than hers, and remain with him in case of
divorce; in the one, divorce is rare and condemned; in the other, it
is common in the extreme; in the one, it is as often the woman as the
man who seeks the divorce; in the other, until most recent times, it
is the man alone who divorces the wife; in the one, the reasons for
divorce are grave; in the other, they are often trivial; in the one,
the wife is the "helpmate"; in the other, she is the man's
"plaything"; or, at most, the means for continuing the family lineage;
in the one, the man is the "husband"; in the other, he is the "danna
san" or "teishu" (the lord or master); in the ideal home of the one,
the wife is the object of the husband's constant affection and
solicitous care; in the ideal home of the other, she ever waits upon
her lord, serves his food for him, and faithfully sits up for him at
night, however late his return may be; in the one, the wife is
justified in resenting any unfaithfulness or immorality on the part of
her husband; in the other, she is commanded to accept with patience
whatever he may do, however many concubines he may have in his home or
elsewhere; and however immoral he may be, she must not be jealous. The
following characterization of the women of Japan is presumably by one
who would do them no injustice, having himself married a Japanese wife
(the editor of the _Japan Mail_).
"The woman of Japan is a charming personage in many ways--gracious,
refined, womanly before everything, sweet-tempered, unselfish,
virtuous, a splendid mother, and an ideal wife from the point of
view of the master. But she is virtually excluded from the whole
intellectual life of the nation. Politics, art, literature,
science, are closed books to her. She cannot think logically about
any of these subjects, express herself clearly with reference to
them, or take an intellectual part in conversations relating to
them. She is, in fact, totally disqualified to be her husband's
intellectual companion, and the inevitable result is that he
despises her."[J]
In face of all these facts, it is evident that the emotional element
of character which plays so large a part in the relation of the sexes
in the West has little, if any, counterpart in the Far East. Where the
emotional element does come in, it is under social condemnation. There
are doubtless many happy marriages in Japan, if the wife is faithful
in her place and fills it well; and if the master is honorable
according to the accepted standards, steady in his business, not given
to wine or women. But even then the affection must be different from
that which prevails in the West. No Japanese wife ever dreams of
receiving the loving care from her husband which is freely accorded
her Western sister by her husband.[K]
I wish, however, to add at once that this is a topic about which it is
dangerous to dogmatize, for the customs of Japan demand that all
expressions of affection between husband and wife shall be sedulously
concealed from the outer world. I can easily believe that there is no
little true affection existing between husband and wife. A Japanese
friend with whom I have talked on this subject expresses his belief
that the statement made above, to the effect that no Japanese wife
dreams of receiving the loving care which is expected by her Western
sister, is doubtless true of Old Japan, but that there has been a
great change in this respect in recent decades; and especially among
the Christian community. That Christians excel the others with whom I
have come in contact, has been evident to me. But that even they are
still very different from Occidentals in this respect, is also clear.
Whatever be the affection lavished on the wife in the privacy of the
home, she does not receive in public the constant evidence of special
regard and high esteem which the Western wife expects as her right.
How much affection can be expressed by low formal bows? The fact is
that Japanese civilization has striven to crush out all signs of
emotion; this stoicism is exemplified to a large degree even in the
home, and under circumstances when we should think it impossible.
Kissing was an unknown art in Japan, and it is still unknown, except
by name, to the great majority of the people. Even mothers seldom kiss
their infant children, and when they do, it is only while the children
are very young.
The question, however, which particularly interests us, is as to the
explanation for these facts. Is the lack of demonstrative affection
between husband and wife due to the inherent nature of the Japanese,
or is it not due rather to the prevailing social order? If a Japanese
goes to America or. England, for a few years, does he maintain his
cold attitude toward all women, and never show the slightest tendency
to fall in love, or exhibit demonstrative affection? These questions
almost answer themselves, and with them the main question for whose
solution we are seeking.
A few concrete instances may help to illustrate the generalization
that these are not fixed because racial characteristics, but variable
ones dependent on the social order. Many years ago when the late Dr.
Neesima, the founder, with Dr. Davis, of the Doshisha, was on the
point of departure for the United States on account of his health, he
made an address to the students. In the course of his remarks he
stated that there were three principal considerations that made him
regret the necessity for his departure at that time; the first was
that the Doshisha was in a most critical position; it was but
starting on its larger work, and he felt that all its friends should
be on hand to help on the great undertaking. The second was that he
was compelled to leave his aged parents, whom he might not find living
on his return to Japan. The third was his sorrow at leaving his
beloved wife. This public reference to his wife, and especially to his
love for her, was so extraordinary that it created no little comment,
not to say scandal; especially obnoxious was it to many, because he
mentioned her after having mentioned his parents. In the reports of
this speech given by his friends to the public press no reference was
made to this expression of love for his wife. And a few months after
his death, when Dr. Davis prepared a short biography of Dr. Neesima,
he was severely criticised by some of the Japanese for reproducing the
speech as Dr. Neesima gave it.