ORIENTAL NUPTIALS
_Japanese Wedlock_
CONFUCIUS wrote: “The man stands in importance before the woman; it is
the right of the strong over the weak. Heaven ranks before earth; the
prince ranks before his minister. This law of honour is one.” The
Occidental reformers who would fain place the women of China and Japan
on an equality with the men of those countries, must first disabuse the
Chinese and the Japanese minds of their deeply-rooted reverence for
Confucius. That will be very difficult. Confucius said so much that has
held true for thousands of years, so very much that has stood the test
of ages—he so satisfies the good and the intellectual—that it will be
a very able “foreign devil” who convinces Chung-Fan and Uzeyama that
Confucius was not infallible. And the chief difficulty will again be
with the women. A heathen man sometimes deserts the heathen gods,—a
heathen woman does so, almost never. Upon these especial words, then, of
Confucius, and upon many similar words of his, and upon words in
literature held almost as sacred, are based the relative positions of
the sexes in China and Japan. It is no mistake to suppose that the men
of China and Japan regard women as their own inferiors. But the great
mistake,—and a common and stupid mistake it is,—the great mistake is
made by those who suppose that in China and Japan man is necessarily
unkind, or even ungentle to woman. A great many of us hold that our
children are our inferiors intellectually and physically, and that we
have a right to their obedience. But we do not, as a matter of
consequence, beat or bully the little creatures who cluster about our
knees. If (with the one exception of the Burmans) the men of Asia regard
themselves as superior to their women, they nevertheless, as a rule,
treat those women with extreme tenderness. There is usually something
prettily paternal in the bearing of an Oriental husband to his wife.
Another point is unnoted by the women who sip four o’clock tea in Europe
and America, and mourn over their sisters in benighted Cathay. They
forget the power of love, and how it “raises the lowly and humbles the
great.” If the _fin-de-siècle_ women of Europe have discarded love as a
silly luxury and a useless ally, the women of Asia have not. It is their
mainstay. And when we wring our emancipated hands over the deplorable
condition of the women of Asia we forget that the woman who is loved is
all-powerful.
The women of Japan are, I think, supreme in their own homes. They
exercise, as a rule, little or no influence on public affairs, but I
fancy that their own indifference is the chief cause of this. The
Japanese women are not generally industrious nor keenly intellectual.
They are as dainty, as beautiful, as fine, as the ivory carvings of
Kioto; they are as exquisite, as lovely in tint, as the embroideries of
Tokio. Yet they have few or none of the qualities of statesmen, but they
are to the men of Japan what Japan is to the world,—they are models of
beauty, exemplifications of grace, flowers of courtesy, acmes of
hospitality; they are sweet refuges of rest, something to be looked upon
with delight and to be loved.
Japan is often an open book to the foreigner who can read its quaint,
graceful characters. The moment you put your foot on Japanese soil you
are the guest of all Japan; every Japanese feels himself your host—in
duty bound to welcome you and to humour you. Hence it ought to be the
easiest thing to learn about their national customs and their home-life.
And so it would be, if both were for long the same. The Japanese are as
variable as their own rainbow-crêpes. They are as illusive as the
colours of the prism. To say, “This is done in Japan, this is thought in
Japan, this is felt in Japan, this is liked in Japan,” is as impossible
as to sharply separate the reds from the pinks, the whites from the
creams, on the petals of a blush rose. And also, there are times when
Japan is a very closed book to Europeans—times when the national cry
is, “Japan for the Japanese.” At such times it is difficult to penetrate
into the heart of Japan, and impossible to learn anything of Japanese
home-life.
There are a few families in Japan who cling rigidly to the customs of
old Japan, and they are far more interesting in their
marriage-observances than the subscribers to Japan the new. Japanese
marriages spring from convenience or inclination. But this is so true of
almost all countries that it can scarcely be recorded as vitally
characteristic of Japan. The terms of the marriage are arranged through
a common friend who is called a “middle man.” When the marriage is
finally agreed upon, and the terms settled, a present is sent from the
bridegroom, by the “middle man,” to the bride. This is called the
“complimentary present.” If it is accepted, the family of the bride are
in honour bound not to retract their consent. Then follows a deluge of
presents. Everybody gives everybody gifts in bewildering varieties and
quantities. The bride’s presents, sent by the bridegroom, include seven
varieties of condiments, and seven barrels of wine. These, I believe,
she often bestows upon her parents. For herself she retains the major
part of the presents, which consist of silk, of gold embroideries, and
robes. There is always gold embroidery for a girdle, and a piece of
white silk stuff, which must be woven with a lozenge pattern, a white
silk robe, and other pieces of white silk stuff. The manner in which
these silks are folded is of importance, as is also the way in which
they are carried. The bridegroom sends his prospective father-in-law a
sword and scabbard and a list of all the presents. He sends to his
future mother-in-law a silk robe and wine and condiments. To the
bridegroom is sent, from the bride’s father, a present equal in value to
those sent by the bridegroom to the bride’s parents. But the bride does
not reciprocate the bridegroom’s gifts. On the marriage night two silk
robes are sent to the bride from the bridegroom, and neither these nor
the one sent before, may, under any circumstances, be folded.
The long ceremonies of the marriage night begin with the passing of the
bride from her girl-home to her wife-home. Before the door of each house
is placed a strip of matting. Before the bride’s door is placed the
bridal litter.
She comes! She stands in her father’s doorway, for the last time, as a
child. The blue wistarias hang in thick, hopeful clusters above her
elaborately-coiffured head. A warm, sweet perfume steals from the rose
garden and mingles with the perfume of her warm, sweet lips. The faint,
clean smell of cherry and of apple blossoms comes with the gentle breeze
that stirs the long white veil which the bride wears with the
incomparable grace of a Japanese woman. In the West there is a last
faint glow of sunset. The maiden’s face is warm with a gentle,
well-controlled flush. From behind the rose garden and the honeysuckle
vines steals the new moonlight. In the girl’s eyes shines a great, pure
glory. The bride’s mother gives a little sob. The girl’s dimpled face
quivers for an instant, then she steps into her litter. The bearers lift
it up, and she is off to her new home and her new life. Ring every
golden bell! Bloom every scented blossom of Japan’s great wild-flower
luxuriance! The bride is coming! She is robed in white. On her outer
robe of silk is woven the bridal lozenge. Behind her walk the bearers of
many gifts. That is a person of much importance, he who carries so
importantly the picturesque bamboo and lacquer bucket. Do you know what
is in it? Clams! They are to make the bridal broth; and in all
Massachusetts there are none who can convert clams into pottage so
delicious as can the cooks of Japan. Behind the clams come the presents
which the bride will offer to her husband. They are carried carefully,
on a tray of rare old lacquer. Among those presents are seven
pocket-books, a sword of fine workmanship, a fan, two girdles, two
silken robes sewn together, and a dress of ceremony,—a dress with wings
of hempen cloth. Dresses of ceremony are very important items in the
wardrobe of every Chinese or Japanese noble. It would be greatly
interesting, had one the time, to investigate the why and wherefore, the
significance, of the prescribed garments worn, upon important occasions,
by the Chinese and Japanese. In passing, I may say that there is no part
of a Japanese dress of ceremony more important than the big sleeves of
hempen cloth. They are worn by the dignitary who performs hara-kiri, and
they must, by all means, be taken to the bridegroom by his bride.
Before the bridegroom’s door burn the big “garden torches.” The “garden
torches” are two fires lit, one on either side of the bridegroom’s
portal. Beside each fire sit a man and woman pounding rice. Between the
fires lies a length of matting, on which the bride’s litter is
deposited. When the bride passes, the rice from the left is mingled with
the rice at the right. This is called the “blending of the rice-meal,”
and is analogous to a detail of the old Latin marriage customs. As the
bride passes in, the wicks of two candles are united. This represents
the union of souls and of bodies. The two wicks are allowed to burn
together for a few moments and are then extinguished. This symbolises, I
believe, the hope that the bride and bridegroom may live and die
together.
The marriage celebration is ceremonial, and there is a characteristic
feast, but, in it, there is no religious element. Japanese religion is
very unobtrusive. There is no priest at the hara-kiri ceremonial; there
is no priest at the marriage ceremony. The feast is very Japanese; it is
peculiar (from our point of view), but it is delicate and artistic. A
great many cups of wine are drunk; but each cup is ridiculously small,
and holds but a pigmy thimbleful. The wine is brought in in kettles, to
which are fastened paper butterflies, each a work of art almost as
beautiful as the butterflies of Nature. In the menu are condiments,
soups—of fishes’ fins and of clams, and of carp. Rice is there of
course, but prepared and served with Japanese originality and
daintiness. After the feast, both bride and bridegroom change their
outer garments—he for the dress of ceremony brought by her—she for the
dress given by him. Then the bride goes to the apartments of her
parents-in-law. She takes with her presents for her husband’s parents,
and there is more drinking of wine drops, and dropping of quaint,
pretty, Japanese curtseys. If the bridegroom’s parents are dead he leads
the bride to the tablets on which are inscribed those parents’ names,
and there she makes obeisance, often and deep.
The bridal apartments are arranged with great nicety by the female
friends of the husband and wife. Japanese married life always has the
great advantage of beginning amid pleasant surroundings.
Very many years ago every Japanese bride blackened her teeth and shaved
her eyebrows, but these practices are now confined to the lower classes.
The Japanese people are too finely artistic to perpetuate any custom
that disfigures their persons. The Japanese wives of to-day are beauties
in all ways enhanced, in no ways disfigured. And in their pretty,
flower-scented homes they sit among big carved vases and tinkling music,
and when the silken lanterns are lit, the soft, coloured light drifts on
to the prettiest, daintiest, most winsome women in the world.
The Japanese women are lovable, and all their lives they are loved. For
what more can woman wish? They lead no armies; they preside over no
legislatures, but they reign and rule at home. They are kissed tenderly
and admired exceedingly.
I have tried to describe an old Japanese marriage. Most of the details
are still retained, I believe, in the marriages of the most orthodox
people. But orthodoxy is on the wane the wide world over. Even in China
(its stronghold), it has shrunk, if ever so little. In Japan—where
manner is more than matter, where seriousness is never very deep—in
Japan orthodoxy itself is a chameleon-like, shifting, uncertain thing.
And even the phantom of orthodoxy holds but limited sway in Japan the
_fin de siècle_.
The marriage ceremony among Westernised, modernised Japanese would
differ in many details from the wedding I have described. It would be
less Japanesque, less elaborate, and, I had almost written, less
picturesque; but nothing can lack in picturesqueness—nothing in which
Japanese women play the principal parts.
[Illustration: HINDOO COOLIE WOMEN WITH LOADS OF BAMBOO. _Page
249._]