first painfully formed under compulsion only, become easy through
constant repetition, and at last automatic, so the conduct compelled
through many generations by religious and civil authority, tends
eventually to become almost instinctive. Much depends, no doubt, upon
the degree to which religious compulsion is hindered by exterior
causes,--by long-protracted war, for example,--and in Old Japan there
was interference extraordinary. Nevertheless, the influence of Shinto
accomplished wonderful things,--evolved a national type of character
worthy, in many ways, of earnest admiration. The ethical sentiment
developed in that character differed widely from our own; but it was
exactly adapted to the social requirements. For this national type of
moral character was invented the name Yamato-damashi (or
Yamato-gokoro),--the Soul of Yamato (or Heart of Yamato),--the
appellation of the old province of Yamato, seat of the early
emperors, being figuratively used for the entire country. We might
correctly, though less literally, interpret the expression
Yamato-damashi as "The Soul of Old Japan."
It was in reference to this "Soul of Old Japan" that the great Shinto
scholars of the eighteenth [160] and nineteenth centuries put forth
their bold assertion that conscience alone was a sufficient ethical
guide. They declared the high quality of the Japanese conscience a
proof of the divine origin of the race. "Human beings," wrote
Motowori, "having been produced by the spirits of the two Creative
Deities, are naturally endowed with the knowledge of what they ought
to do, and of what they ought to refrain from doing. It is
unnecessary for them to trouble their minds with systems of morality.
If a system of morals were necessary, men would be inferior to
animals,--all of whom are endowed with the knowledge of what they
ought to do, only in an inferior degree to men."*... [*All of these
extracts are quoted from Satow's great essay on the Shinto revival.]
Mabuchi, at an earlier day, had made a comparison between Japanese
and Chinese morality, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter. "In
ancient times," said Mabuchi, "when men's dispositions were
straightforward, a complicated system of morals was unnecessary. It
would naturally happen that bad actions might be occasionally
committed; but the straightforwardness of men's dispositions would
prevent the evil from being concealed and so growing in extent. So in
those days it was unnecessary to have a doctrine of right and wrong.
But the Chinese, being bad at heart, in spite of the teaching which
they got, were good [161] only on the outside; so their bad acts
became of such magnitude that society was thrown into disorder. The
Japanese, being straightforward, could do without teaching." Motowori
repeated these ideas in a slightly different way: "It is because the
Japanese were truly moral in their practice, that, they required no
theory of morals; and the fuss made by the Chinese about theoretical
morals is owing to their laxity, in practice.... To have learned that
there is no Way [ethical system] to be learned and practised, is
really to have learned to practise the Way of the Gods." At a later
day Hirata wrote "Learn to stand in awe of the Unseen, and that will
prevent you from doing wrong. Cultivate the conscience implanted in
you then you will never wander from the Way."
Though the sociologist may smile at these declarations of moral
superiority (especially as based on the assumption that the race had
been better in primeval times, when yet fresh from the hands of the
gods), there was in them a grain of truth. When Mabuchi and Motowori
wrote, the nation had been long subjected to a discipline of almost
incredible minuteness in detail, and of extraordinary rigour in
application. And this discipline had actually brought into existence
a wonderful average of character,--a character of surprising
patience, unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility combined
with high courage. But only the evolutionist [162] can imagine what
the cost of developing that character must have been.
It is necessary here to observe that the discipline to which the
nation had been subjected up to the age of the great Shinto writers,
seems to have had a curious evolutional history of its own. In
primitive times it had been much less uniform, less complex, less
minutely organized, though not less implacable; and it had continued
to develop and elaborate more and more with the growth and
consolidation of society, until, under the Tokugawa Shogunate the
possible maximum of regulation was reached. In other words, the yoke
had been made heavier and heavier in proportion to the growth of the
national strength,--in proportion to the power of the people to bear
it.... We have seen that, from the beginning of this civilization,
the whole life of the citizen was ordered for him: his occupation,
his marriage, his rights of fatherhood, his rights to hold or to
dispose of property,--all these matters were settled by religious
custom. We have also seen that outside as well as inside of his home,
his actions were under supervision, and that a single grave breach of
usage might cause his social ruin,--in which case he would be given
to understand that he was not merely a social, but also a religious
offender; that the communal god was angry with him; and that to
pardon his fault might [163] provoke the divine vengeance against the
entire settlement. But it yet remains to be seen what rights were
left him by the central authority ruling his district,--which
authority represented a third form of religious despotism from which
there was no appeal in ordinary cases.
Material for the study of the old laws and customs have not yet been
collected in sufficient quantity to yield us full information as to
the conditions of all classes before Meiji. But a great deal of
precious work has been accomplished in this direction by American
scholars; and the labours of Professor Wigmore and of the late Dr.
Simmons have furnished documentary evidence from which much can be
learned about the legal status of the masses during the Tokugawa
period. This, as I have said, was the period of the most elaborated
regulation. The extent to which the people were controlled can be
best inferred from the nature and number of the sumptuary laws to
which they were subjected. Sumptuary laws in Old Japan probably
exceeded in multitude and minuteness anything of which Western legal
history yields record. Rigidly as the family-cult dictated behaviour
in the home, strictly as the commune enforced its standards of
communal duty,--just so rigidly and strictly did the rulers of the
nation dictate how the individual--man, woman, or child--should
dress, walk, sit, [164] speak, work, eat, drink. Amusements were not
less unmercifully regulated than were labours.
Every class of Japanese society was under sumptuary regulation,--the
degree of regulation varying in different centuries; and this kind of
legislation appears to have been established at an early period. It
is recorded that, in the year 681 A.D., the Emperor Temmu regulated
the costumes of all classes,--"from the Princes of the Blood down to
the common people,--and the wearing of headdresses and girdles, as
well as of all kinds of coloured stuffs,--according to a scale."* [*
See Nihongi Aston's translation, Vol. II, pp. 343, 349, 350.] The
costumes and the colours to be worn by priests and nuns had been
already fixed, by an edict issued in 679 A.D. Afterwards these
regulations were greatly multiplied and detailed. But it was under
the Tokugawa rulers, a thousand years later, that sumptuary laws
obtained their most remarkable development; and the nature of them is
best: indicated by the regulations applying to the peasantry. Every
detail of the farmer's existence was prescribed for by law,--from the
size, form, and cost of his dwelling, down even to such trifling
matters as the number and the quality of the dishes to be served to
him at meal-times. A farmer with an income of 100 koku of rice--(let
us say 90 to 100 pounds per annum)--might build a house 60 feet long,
but no longer: he was forbidden to construct it with a room
containing an alcove; and he was not [165] allowed--except by special
permission--to roof it with tiles. None of his family were permitted
to wear silk; and in case of the marriage of his daughter to a person
legally entitled to wear silk, the bridegroom was to be requested not
to wear silk at the wedding. Three kinds of viands only were to be
served at the wedding of such a farmer's daughter or son; and the
quality as well as the quantity of the soup, fish, or sweetmeats
offered to the wedding-guests, were legally fixed. So likewise the
number of the wedding-gifts: even the cost of the presents, of
rice-wine and dried fish was prescribed, and the quality of the
single fan which it was permissible to offer the bride. At no time
was a farmer allowed to make any valuable presents to his friends. At
a funeral he might serve the guests with certain kinds of plain food;
but if rice-wine were served it was not to be served in
wine-cups,--only in soup-cups! (The latter regulation probably
referred to Shinto funerals in especial.) On the occasion of a
child's birth, the grandparents were allowed to make only four
presents (according to custom),--including "one cotton baby-dress";
and the values of the presents were fixed. On the occasion of the
Boy's Festival, the presents to be given to the child by the whole
family, including grandparents, were limited by law to "one
paper-flag," and "two toy-spears." ... A farmer whose, property was
assessed at 50 koku was forbidden to [166] build a house more than 45
feet long. At the wedding of his daughter the gift-girdle was not to
exceed 50 sen in value; and it was forbidden to serve more than one
kind of soup at the wedding-feast.... A farmer with a property
assessed at 20 koku was not allowed to build a house more than 36
feet long, or to use in building it such superior qualities of wood
as keyaki or hinoki. The roof of his house was to be made of
bamboo-thatch or straw; and he was strictly forbidden the comfort of
floor-mats. On the occasion of the wedding of his daughter he was
forbidden to have fish or any roasted food served at the
wedding-feast. The women of his family were not allowed to wear
leather sandals: they might wear only straw-sandals or wooden clogs;
and the thongs of the sandals or the clogs were to be made of cotton.
The women were further forbidden to wear hair-bindings of silk, or
hair-ornaments of tortoise-shells; but they might wear wooden combs
and combs of bone--not ivory. The men were forbidden to wear
stockings, and their sandals were to be made of bamboo.* [*There are
sandals or clogs made of bamboo-wood, but the meaning here is
bamboo-grass.] They were also forbidden to use sun-shades
--hi-gasa--or paper-umbrellas.... A farmer assessed at 10 koku was
forbidden to build a house more than 30 feet long. The women of his
family were required to wear sandals with thongs of [167]
bamboo-grass. At the wedding of his son or daughter one present only
was allowed,--a quilt-chest. At the birth of his child one present
only was to be made: namely, one toy-spear, in the case of a boy; or
one paper-doll, or one "mud-doll," in the case of a girl... As for
the more unfortunate class of farmers, having no land of their own,
and officially termed mizunomi, or "water-drinkers," it is scarcely
necessary to remark that these were still more severely restricted in
regard to food, apparel, etc. They were not even allowed, for
example, to have a quilt-chest as a wedding-present. But a fair idea
of the complexity of these humiliating restrictions can only be
obtained by reading the documents published by Professor Wigmore,
which chiefly consist of paragraphs like these:--
"The collar and the sleeve-ends of the clothes may be ornamented with
silk, and an obi (soft girdle) of silk or crepe-silk may be worn--but
not in public." ...
"A family ranking less than 20 koku must use the Takeda-wan (Takeda
rice-bowl), and the Nikko-zen (Nikko tray).".. (These were utensils
of the cheapest kind of lacquer-ware.)
"Large farmers or chiefs of Kumi may use umbrellas; but small farmers
and farm-labourers must use only mino (straw-raincoats), and broad
straw-hats." ...
These documents published by Professor Wigmore contain only the
regulations issued for the daimiate of Maizuru; but regulations
equally [168] minute and vexatious appear to have been enforced
throughout the whole country. In Izumo I found that, prior to Meiji,
there were sumptuary laws prescribing not only the material of the
dresses to be worn by the various classes, but even the colours of
them, and the designs of the patterns. The size of rooms, as well as
the size of houses, was fixed there by law,--also the height of
buildings and of fences, the number of windows, the material of
construction.... It is difficult for the Western mind to understand
how human beings could patiently submit to laws that regulated not
only the size of one's dwelling, and the cost of its furniture, but
even the substance and character of clothing,--not only the expense
of a wedding outfit, but the quality of the marriage-feast, and the
quality of the vessels in which the food was to be served,--not only
the kind of ornaments to be worn in a woman's hair, but the material
of the thongs of her sandals,--not only the price of presents to be
made to friends, but the character and the cost of the cheapest toy
to be given to a child. And the peculiar constitution of society made
it possible to enforce this sumptuary legislation by communal will;
the people were obliged to coerce themselves! Each community, as we
have seen, had been organized in groups of five or more households,
called kumi; and the heads of the households forming a kumi elected
one of their number as kumi-gashira, or group-chief, directly [169]
responsible to the higher authority. The kumi was accountable for the
conduct of each and all of its members; and each member was in some
sort responsible for the rest. "Every member of a kumi," declares one
of the documents above mentioned, "must carefully watch the conduct
of his fellow-members. If any one violates these regulations, without
due excuse, he is to be punished; and his kumi will also be held
responsible." Responsible even for the serious offence of giving more
than one paper-doll to a child! ... But we should remember that in
early Greek and Roman societies there was much legislation of a
similar kind. The laws of Sparta regulated the way in which a woman
should dress her hair; the laws of Athens fixed the number of her
robes. At Rome, in early times, women were forbidden to drink wine;
and a similar law existed in the Greek cities of Miletus and
Massilia. In Rhodes and Byzantium the citizen was forbidden to shave;
in Sparta he was forbidden to wear a moustache. (I need scarcely
refer to the later Roman laws regulating the cost of marriage-feasts,
and the number of guests that might be invited to a banquet; for this
legislation was directed chiefly against luxury.) The astonishment
evoked by Japanese sumptuary laws, particularly as inflicted upon the
peasantry, is justified less by their general character than by their
implacable minuteness,--their ferocity of detail.... [170] Where a
man's life was legally ordered even to the least particulars,--even
to the quality of his foot-gear and head-gear, the cost of his wife's
hairpins, and the price of his child's doll,--one could hardly
suppose that freedom of speech would have been tolerated. It did not
exist; and the degree to which speech became regulated can be
imagined only by those who have studied the spoken tongue. The
hierarchical organization of society was faithfully reflected in the
conventional organization of language,--in the ordination of
pronouns, nouns, and verbs,--in the grades conferred upon adjectives
by prefixes or suffixes. With the same merciless exactitude which
prescribed rules for dress, diet, and manner of life, all utterance
was regulated both negatively and positively,--but positively much
more than negatively. There was little insistence upon what was not
to be said; but rules innumerable decided exactly what should be
said,--the word to be chosen, the phrase to be used. Early training
enforced caution in this regard: everybody had to learn that only
certain verbs and nouns and pronouns were lawful when addressing
superiors, and other words permissible only when speaking to equals
or to inferiors. Even the uneducated were obliged to learn something
about this. But education cultivated a system of verbal etiquette so
multiform that only the training of years could enable any one to
master it. Among the [171] higher classes this etiquette developed
almost inconceivable complexity. Grammatical modifications of
language, which, by implication, exalted the person addressed or
humbly depreciated the person addressing, must have come into general
use at some very early period; but under subsequent Chinese influence
these forms of propitiatory speech multiplied exceedingly. From the
Mikado himself--who still makes use of personal pronouns, or at least
pronominal expressions, forbidden to any other mortal--down through
all the grades of society, each class had an "I" peculiarly its own.
Of terms corresponding to "you" or "thou" there are still sixteen in
use; but formerly there were many more. There are yet eight different
forms of the second person singular used only in addressing children,
pupils, or servants.* Honorific or humble forms of nouns indicating
relationship were similarly multiplied and graded: there are still in
use nine terms signifying "father," nine terms signifying "mother,"
eleven terms for "wife," eleven terms for "son," nine terms for
"daughter," and seven terms for "husband." The rules of the verb,
above all, were complicated by the exigencies of etiquette to a [172]
degree of which no idea can be given in any brief statement.... At
nineteen or twenty years of age a person carefully trained from
childhood might have learned all the necessary verbal usages of
respectable society; but for a mastery of the etiquette of superior
converse many more years of study and experience were required. With
the unceasing multiplication of ranks and classes there came into
existence a corresponding variety of forms of language: it was
possible to ascertain to what class a man or a woman belonged by
listening to his or to her conversation. The written, like the spoken
tongue, was regulated by strict convention: the forms used by women
were not those used by men; and those differences in verbal etiquette
arising from the different training of the sexes resulted in the
creation of a special epistolary style,--a "woman's language," which
remains in use. And this sex-differentiation of language was not
confined to letter-writing: there was a woman's language also of
converse, varying according to class. Even to-day, in ordinary
conversation, an educated woman makes use of words and phrases not
employed by men. Samurai women especially had their particular forms
of expression in feudal times; and it is still possible to decide,
from the speech of any woman brought up according to the old
home-training, whether she belongs to a Samurai family.
[*The sociologist will of course understand that these facts are not
by any means inconsistent with that very sparing use of pronouns so
amusingly discussed in Percival Lowell's "Soul of the Far East." In
societies where subjection is extreme "there is an avoidance of the
use of personal pronouns," though, as Herbert Spencer points out in
illustrating this law, it is just among such societies that the most
elaborate distinctions in pronominal forms of address are to be
found.]
[173] Of course the matter as well as the manner of converse was
restricted; and the nature of the restraints upon free speech can be
inferred from the nature of the restraints upon freedom of demeanour.
Demeanour was most elaborately and mercilessly regulated, not merely
as to obeisances, of which there were countless grades, varying
according to sex as well as class,--but even in regard to facial
expression, the manner of smiling, the conduct of the breath, the way
of sitting, standing, walking, rising. Everybody was trained from
infancy in this etiquette of expression and deportment. At what
period it first became a mark of disrespect to betray, by look or
gesture, any feeling of grief or pain in the presence of a superior,
we cannot know; there is reason to believe that the most perfect
self-control in this regard was enforced from prehistoric times. But
there was gradually developed--partly, perhaps, under Chinese
teaching--a most elaborate code of deportment which exacted very much
more than impassiveness. It required not only that any sense of anger
or pain should be denied all outward expression, but that the
sufferer's face and manner should indicate the contrary feeling.
Sullen submission was an offence; mere impassive obedience
inadequate: the proper degree of submission should manifest itself by
a pleasant smile, and by a soft and happy tone of voice. The smile,
however, was also regulated. [174] One had to be careful about the
quality of the smile: it was a mortal offence, for example, so to
smile in addressing a superior, that the back teeth could be seen. In
the military class especially this code of demeanour was ruthlessly
enforced. Samurai women were required, like the women of Sparta, to
show signs of joy on hearing that their husbands or sons had fallen
in battle: to betray any natural feeling under the circumstances was
a grave breach of decorum. And in all classes demeanour was regulated
so severely that even to-day the manners of the people everywhere
still reveal the nature of the old discipline. The strangest fact is
that the old-fashioned manners appear natural rather than acquired,
instinctive rather than made by training. The bow,--the sibilant in
drawing of the breath which accompanies the prostration, and is
practised also in praying to the gods,--the position of the hands
upon the floor in the moment of greeting or of farewell,--the way of
sitting or rising or walking in presence of a guest,--the manner of
receiving or presenting anything,--all these ordinary actions have a
charm of seeming naturalness that mere teaching seems incapable of
producing. And this is still more true of the higher etiquette,--the
exquisite etiquette of the old-time training in cultivated classes,
--particularly as displayed by women. We must suppose that the
capacity to acquire such manners depends considerably upon
inheritance,--that it could only have [175] been formed by the past
experience of the race under discipline.
What such discipline, as regards politeness, must have signified for
the mass of the people, may be inferred from the enactment of Iyeyasu
authorizing a Samurai to kill any person of the three inferior
classes guilty of rudeness. Be it observed that Iyeyasu was careful
to qualify the meaning of "rude": he said that the Japanese term for
a rude fellow signified "an other-than-expected person"--so that to
commit an offence worthy of death it was only necessary to act in an
"unexpected manner"; that is to say, contrary to prescribed
etiquette:--
"The Samurai are the masters of the four classes. Agriculturists,
artizans, and merchants may not behave in a rude manner towards
Samurai. The term for a rude man is an 'other-than-expected fellow';
and a Samurai is not to be interfered with in cutting down a fellow
who has behaved to him in a manner other than is expected. The
Samurai are grouped into direct retainers, secondary retainers, and
nobles and retainers of high and low grade; but the same line of
conduct is equally allowable to them all towards an
other-than-expected fellow."--[Art. 45.]