appears to have had in early [71] times powers of life and death over
all the members of the household. In the ruder ages the father might
either kill or sell his children; and afterwards, among the ruling
classes his powers remained almost unlimited until modern times.
Allowing for certain local exceptions, explicable by tradition, or
class-exceptions, explicable by conditions of servitude, it may be
said that originally the Japanese paterfamilias was at once ruler,
priest, and magistrate within the family. He could compel his
children to marry or forbid them to marry; he could disinherit or
repudiate them; he could ordain the profession or calling which they
were to follow; and his power extended to all members of the family,
and to the household dependents. At different epochs limits were
placed to the exercise of this power, in the case of the ordinary
people; but in the military class, the patria potestas was almost
unrestricted. In its extreme form, the paternal power controlled
everything,--the right to life and liberty,--the right to marry, or
to keep the wife or husband already espoused,--the right to one's own
children,--the right to hold property,--the right to hold
office,--the right to choose or follow an occupation. The family was
a despotism.
It should not be forgotten, however, that the absolutism prevailing
in the patriarchal family has its justification in a religious
belief,--in the conviction that everything should be sacrificed for
the sake [72] of the cult, and every member of the family should be
ready to give up even life, if necessary, to assure the perpetuity of
the succession. Remembering this, it becomes easy to understand why,
even in communities otherwise advanced in civilization, it should
have seemed right that a father could kill or sell his children. The
crime of a son might result in the extinction of a cult through the
ruin of the family,--especially in a militant society like that of
Japan, where the entire family was held responsible for the acts of
each of its members, so that a capital offence would involve the
penalty of death on the whole of the household, including the
children. Again, the sale of a daughter, in time of extreme need,
might save a house from ruin; and filial piety exacted submission to
such sacrifice for the sake of the cult.
As in the Aryan family,* property descended by right of primogeniture
from father to son; the eldest-born, even in cases where the other
property was to be divided among the children, always inheriting the
homestead. The homestead property was, however, family property; and
it passed to the eldest son as representative, not as individual.
Generally speaking, sons could not hold property, without the
father's consent, during such time as he retained his [73] headship.
As a rule,--to which there were various exceptions,--a daughter could
not inherit; and in the case of an only daughter, for whom a husband
had been adopted, the homestead property would pass to the adopted
husband, because (until within recent times) a woman could not become
the head of a family. This was the case also in the Western Aryan
household, in ancestor-worshipping times.
[*The laws of succession in Old Japan differed considerably according
to class, place, and era; the entire subject has not yet been fully
treated; and only a few safe general statements can be ventured at
the present time.]
To modern thinking, the position of woman in the old Japanese family
appears to have been the reverse of happy. As a child she was
subject, not only to the elders, but to all the male adults of the
household. Adopted into another household as wife, she merely passed
into a similar state of subjection, unalleviated by the affection
which parental and fraternal ties assured her in the ancestral home.
Her retention in the family of her husband did not depend upon his
affection, but upon the will of the majority, and especially of the
elders. Divorced, she could not claim her children: they belonged to
the family of the husband. In any event her duties as wife were more
trying than those of a hired servant. Only in old age could she hope
to exercise some authority; but even in old age she was under
tutelage--throughout her entire life she was in tutelage. "A woman
can have no house of her own in the Three Universes," declared an old
Japanese proverb. Neither could she have a cult of her own: there was
no special cult for the women of a family [74]--no ancestral rite
distinct from that of the husband. And the higher the rank of the
family into which she entered by marriage, the more difficult would
be her position. For a woman of the aristocratic class no freedom
existed: she could not even pass beyond her own gate except in a
palanquin (kago) or under escort; and her existence as a wife was
likely to be embittered by the presence of concubines in the house.
Such was the patriarchal family in old times; yet it is probable that
conditions were really better than the laws and the customs would
suggest. The race is a joyous and kindly one; and it discovered, long
centuries ago, many ways of smoothing the difficulties of life, and
of modifying the harsher exactions of law and custom. The great
powers of the family-head were probably but seldom exercised in cruel
directions. He might have legal rights of the most formidable
character; but these were required by reason of his responsibilities,
and were not likely to be used against communal judgment. It must be
remembered that the individual was not legally considered in former
times: the family only was recognized; and the head of it legally
existed only as representative. If he erred, the whole family was
liable to suffer the penalty of his error. Furthermore, every extreme
exercise of his authority involved proportionate responsibilities. He
could [75] divorce his wife, or compel his son to divorce the adopted
daughter-in-law; but in either case he would have to account for this
action to the family of the divorced; and the divorce-right,
especially in the samurai class, was greatly restrained by the fear
of family resentment; the unjust dismissal of a wife being counted as
an insult to her kindred. He might disinherit an only son; but in
that event he would be obliged to adopt a kinsman. He might kill or
sell either son or daughter; but unless he belonged to some abject
class, he would have to justify his action to the community.* He
might be reckless in his management of the family property; but in
that case an appeal to communal authority was possible, and the
appeal might result in his deposition. So far as we are able to judge
from the remains of old Japanese law which have been studied, it
would seem to have been the general rule that the family-head could
not sell or alienate the estate. Though the family-rule was despotic,
it was the rule of a body rather than of a chief; the family-head
really exercising authority in the name of the rest .... In this
sense, the family still remains a despotism; but the powers of its
legal head are now checked, from within as well as from without, [76]
by later custom. The acts of adoption, disinheritance, marriage, or
divorce, are decided usually by general consent; and the decision of
the household and kindred is required in the taking of any important
step to the disadvantage of the individual.
[*Samurai fathers might kill a daughter convicted of unchastity, or
kill a son guilty of any action calculated to disgrace the family
name. But they would not sell a child. The sale of daughters was
practised only by the abject classes, or by families of other castes
reduced to desperate extremities. A girl might, however, sell herself
for the sake of her family.]
Of course the old family-organization had certain advantages which
compensated the individual for his state of subjection. It was a
society of mutual help; and it was not less powerful to give aid,
than to enforce obedience. Every member could do something to assist
another member in case of need: each had a right to the protection of
all. This remains true of the family to-day. In a well-conducted
household, where every act is performed according to the old forms of
courtesy and kindness,--where no harsh word is ever spoken, where the
young look up to the aged with affectionate respect,--where those
whom years have incapacitated for more active duty, take upon
themselves the care of the children, and render priceless service in
teaching and training,--an ideal condition has been realized. The
daily life of such a home,--in which the endeavour of each is to make
existence as pleasant as possible for all.,--in which the bond of
union is really love and gratitude,--represents religion in the best
and purest sense; and the place is holy ....
It remains to speak of the dependants in the [77] ancient family.
Though the fact has not yet been fully established, it is probable
that the first domestics were slaves or serfs; and the condition of
servants in later times,--especially of those in families of the
ruling classes,--was much like that of slaves in the early Greek and
Roman families. Though necessarily treated as inferiors, they were
regarded as members of the household: they were trusted familiars,
permitted to share in the pleasures of the family, and to be present
at most of its reunions. They could legally be dealt with harshly;
but there is little doubt that, as a rule, they were treated
kindly,--absolute loyalty being expected from them. The best
indication of their status in past times is furnished by yet
surviving customs. Though the power of the family over the servant no
longer exists in law or in fact, the pleasant features of the old
relation continue; and they are of no little interest. The family
takes a sincere interest in the welfare of its domestics,--almost
such interest as would be shown in the case of poorer kindred.
Formerly the family furnishing servants to a household of higher
rank, stood to the latter in the relation of vassal to liege-lord;
and between the two there existed a real bond of loyalty and
kindliness. The occupation of servant was then hereditary; children
were trained for the duty from an early age. After the man-servant or
maidservant had arrived at a certain age, permission to [78] marry
was accorded; and the relation of service then ceased, but not the
bond of loyalty. The children of the married servants would be sent,
when old enough, to work in the house of the master, and would leave
it only when the time also came for them to marry. Relations of this
kind still exist between certain aristocratic families and former
vassal-families, and conserve some charming traditions and customs of
hereditary service, unchanged for hundreds of years.
In feudal times, of course, the bond between master and servant was
of the most serious kind; the latter being expected, in case of need,
to sacrifice life and all else for the sake of the master or of the
master's household. This also was the loyalty demanded of the Greek
and Roman domestic,--before there had yet come into existence that
inhuman form of servitude which reduced the toiler to the condition
of a beast of burden; and the relation was partly a religious one.
There does not seem to have been in ancient Japan any custom
corresponding to that, described by M. de Coulanges, of adopting the
Greek or Roman servant into the household cult. But as the Japanese
vassal-families furnishing domestics were, as vassals, necessarily
attached to the clan-cult of their lord, the relation of the servant
to the family was to some extent a religious bond.
[79] The reader will be able to understand, from the facts of this
chapter, to what extent the individual was sacrificed to the family,
as a religious body. From servant to master--up through all degrees
of the household hierarchy--the law of duty was the same: obedience
absolute to custom and tradition. The ancestral cult permitted no
individual freedom: nobody could live according to his or her
pleasure; every one had to live according to rule. The individual did
not even have a legal existence;--the family was the unit of society.
Even its patriarch existed in law as representative only, responsible
both to the living and the dead. His public responsibility, however,
was not determined merely by civil law. It was determined by another
religious bond,--that of the ancestral cult of the clan or tribe; and
this public form of ancestor-worship was even more exacting than the
religion of the home.
[80]
[81]
THE COMMUNAL CULT
As by the religion of the household each individual was ruled in
every action of domestic life, so, by the religion of the village or
district the family was ruled in all its relations to the outer
world. Like the religion of the home, the religion of the commune was
ancestor-worship. What the household shrine represented to the
family, the Shinto parish-temple represented to the community; and
the deity there worshipped as tutelar god was called Ujigami, the god
of the Uji, which term originally signified the patriarchal family or
gens, as well as the family name.
Some obscurity still attaches to the question of the original
relation of the community to the Uji-god. Hirata declares the god of
the Uji to have been the common ancestor of the clan-family,--the
ghost of the first patriarch; and this opinion (allowing for sundry
exceptions) is almost certainly correct. But it is difficult to
decide whether the Uji-ko, or "children of the family" (as Shinto
parishioners are still termed) at first included only the descendants
of the clan-ancestor, or also the whole of the inhabitants [82] of
the district ruled by the clan. It is certainly not true at the
present time that the tutelar deity of each Japanese district
represents the common ancestor of its inhabitants,--though, to this
general rule, there might be found exception in some of the remoter
provinces. Most probably the god of the Uji was first worshipped by
the people of the district rather as the spirit of a former ruler, or
the patron-god of a ruling family, than as the spirit of a common
ancestor. It has been tolerably well proved that the bulk of the
Japanese people were in a state of servitude from before the
beginning of the historic period, and so remained until within
comparatively recent times. The subject-classes may not have had at
first a cult of their own: their religion would most likely have been
that of their masters. In later times the vassal was certainly
attached to the cult of the lord. But it is difficult as yet to
venture any general statement as to the earliest phase of the
communal cult in Japan; for the history of the Japanese nation is not
that of a single people of one blood, but a history of many
clan-groups, of different origin, gradually brought together to form
one huge patriarchal society.
However, it is quite safe to assume, with the best native
authorities, that the Ujigami were originally clan-deities, and that
they were usually, though not invariably, worshipped as
clan-ancestors. [83] Some Ujigami belong to the historic period. The
war god Hachiman, for example,--to whom parish-temples are dedicated
in almost every large city,--is the apotheosized spirit of the
Emperor Ojin, patron of the famed Minamoto clan. This is an example
of Ujigami worship in which the clan-god is not an ancestor. But in
many instances the Ujigami is really the ancestor of an Uji; as in
the case of the great deity of Kasuga, from whom the Fujiwara clan
claimed descent. Altogether there were in ancient Japan, after the
beginning of the historic era, 1182 clans, great and small; and these
appear to have established the same number of cults. We find, as
might be expected, that the temples now called Ujigami--which is to
say, Shinto parish-temples in general--are always dedicated to a
particular class of divinities, and never dedicated to certain other
gods. Also, it is significant that in every large town there are
Shinto temples dedicated to the same Uji-gods,--proving the transfer
of communal worship from its place of origin. Thus the Izumo
worshipper of Kasuga-Sama can find in Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo,
parish-temples dedicated to his patron: the Kyushu worshipper of
Hachiman-Sama can place himself under the protection of the same
deity in Musashi quite as well as in Higo or Bungo. Another fact
worth observing is that the Ujigami temple is not necessarily the
most important Shinto temple in the parish: it is the parish-temple,
[84] and important to the communal worship; but it may be outranked
and overshadowed by some adjacent temple dedicated to higher Shinto
gods. Thus in Kitzuki of Izumo, for example, the great Izumo temple
is not the Ujigami,--not the parish-temple; the local cult is
maintained at a much smaller temple .... Of the higher cults I shall
speak further on; for the present let us consider only the communal
cult, in its relation to communal life. From the social conditions
represented by the worship of the Ujigami to-day, much can be
inferred as to its influence in past times.
Almost every Japanese village has its Ujigami; and each district of
every large town or city also has its Ujigami. The worship of the
tutelar deity is maintained by the whole body of parishioners, the
Ujiko, or children of the tutelar god. Every such parish-temple has
its holy days, when all Ujiko are expected to visit the temple, and
when, as a matter of fact, every household sends at least one
representative to the Ujigami. There are great festival-days and
ordinary festival-days; there are processions, music, dancing, and
whatever in the way of popular amusement can serve to make the
occasion attractive. The people of adjacent districts vie with each
other in rendering their respective temple-festivals (matsuri)
enjoyable: every household contributes according to its means. [85]
The Shinto parish-temple has an intimate relation to the life of the
community as a body, and also to the individual existence of every
Ujiko. As a baby he or she is taken to the Ujigami--(at the
expiration of thirty-one days after birth if a boy, or thirty-three
days after birth if a girl)--and placed under the protection of the
god, in whose supposed presence the little one's name is recorded.
Thereafter the child is regularly taken to the temple on holy days,
and of course to all the big festivals, which are made delightful to
young fancy by the display of toys on sale in temporary booths, and
by the amusing spectacles to be witnessed in the temple
grounds,--artists forming pictures on the pavement with coloured
sands,--sweetmeat-sellers moulding animals and monsters out of
sugar-paste,--conjurors and tumblers exhibiting their skill....
Later, when the child becomes strong enough to run about, the temple
gardens and groves serve for a playground. School-life does not
separate the Ujiko from the Ujigami (unless the family should
permanently leave the district); the visits to the temple are still
continued as a duty. Grown-up and married, the Ujiko regularly visits
the guardian-god, accompanied by wife or husband, and brings the
children to pay obeisance. If obliged to make a long journey, or to
quit the district forever, the Ujiko pays a farewell visit to the
Ujigami, as well as to the tombs of the family ancestors; and on
returning to one's native place after prolonged [86] absence, the
first visit is to the god .... I have more than once been touched by
the spectacle of soldiers at prayer before lonesome little temples in
country places,--soldiers but just returned from Korea, China, or
Formosa: their first thought on reaching home was to utter their
thanks to the god of their childhood, whom they believed to have
guarded them in the hour of battle and the season of pestilence.
The best authority on the local customs and laws of Old Japan, John
Henry Wigmore, remarks that the Shinto cult had few relations with
local administration. In his opinion the Ujigami were the deified
ancestors of certain noble families of early times; and their temples
continued to be in the patronage of those families. The office of the
Shinto priest, or "god-master" (kannushi) was, and still is,
hereditary; and, as a rule, any kannushi can trace back his descent
from the family of which the Ujigami was originally the patron-god.
But the Shinto priests, with some few exceptions, were neither
magistrates nor administrators; and Professor Wigmore thinks that
this may have been "due to the lack of administrative organization
within the cult itself."* [87] This would be an adequate explanation.
But in spite of the fact that they exercised no civil function, I
believe it can be shown that Shinto priests had, and still have,
powers above the law. Their relation to the community was of an
extremely important kind: their authority was only religious but it
was heavy and irresistible.
[*The vague character of the Shinto hierarchy is probably best
explained by Mr. Spencer in Chapter VIII of the third volume of
Principles of Sociology: "The establishment of an ecclesiastical
organization separate from the political organization, but akin to it
in its structure, appears to be largely determined by the rise of a
decided distinction in thought between the affairs of this world and
those of a supposed other world. Where the two are conceived as
existing in continuity, or as intimately related, the organizations
appropriate to their respective administrations remain either
identical or imperfectly distinguished .... if the Chinese are
remarkable for the complete absence of a priestly caste, it is
because, along with their universal and active ancestor-worship, they
have preserved that inclusion of the duties of priest in the duties
of ruler, which ancestor-worship in its simple form shows us." Mr.
Spencer remarks in the same paragraph on the fact that in ancient
Japan "religion and government were the same." A distinct Shinto
hierarchy was therefore never evolved.]
To understand this, we must remember that the Shinto priest
represented the religious sentiment of his district. The social bond
of each community was identical with the religious bond,--the cult of
the local tutelar god. It was to the Ujigami that prayers were made
for success in all communal undertakings, for protection against
sickness, for the triumph of the lord in time of war, for succour in
the season of famine or epidemic. The Ujigami was the giver of all
good things,--the special helper and guardian of the people. That
this belief still prevails may be verified by any one who studies the
peasant-life of Japan. It is not to the Buddhas that the farmer prays
for bountiful harvests, or for rain in time of drought; it is not to
the Buddhas [88] that thanks are rendered for a plentiful
rice-crop--but to the ancient local god. And the cult of the Ujigami
embodies the moral experience of the community,--represents all its
cherished traditions and customs, its unwritten laws of conduct, its
sentiment of duty .... Now just as an offence against the ethics of
the family must, in such a society, be regarded as an impiety towards
the family-ancestor, so any breach of custom in the village or
district must be considered as an act of disrespect to its Ujigami.
The prosperity of the family depends, it is thought, upon the
observance of filial piety, which is identified with obedience to the
traditional rules of household conduct; and, in like manner, the
prosperity of the commune is supposed to depend upon the observance
of ancestral custom,--upon obedience to those unwritten laws of the
district, which are taught to all from the time of their childhood.
Customs are identified with morals. Any offence against the customs
of the settlement is an offence against the gods who protect it, and
therefore a menace to the public weal. The existence of the community
is endangered by the crime of any of its members: every member is
therefore held accountable by the community for his conduct. Every
action must conform to the traditional usages of the Ujiko:
independent exceptional conduct is a public offence.
What the obligations of the individual to the [89] community
signified in ancient times may therefore be imagined. He had
certainly no more right to himself than had the Greek citizen three
thousand years ago,--probably not so much. To-day, though laws have
been greatly changed, he is practically in much the same condition.
The mere idea of the right to do as one pleases (within such limits
as are imposed on conduct by English and American societies, for
example) could not enter into his mind. Such freedom, if explained to
him, he would probably consider as a condition morally comparable to
that of birds and beasts. Among ourselves, the social regulations for
ordinary people chiefly settle what must not be done. But what one
must not do in Japan--though representing a very wide range of
prohibition means much less than half of the common obligation: what
one must do, is still more necessary to learn .... Let us briefly
consider the restraints which custom places upon the liberty of the
individual.