FARMERS' WIVES AND DAUGHTERS
Japan has three leading wealth-earning occupations: agriculture,
sericulture, and factory work. In each of these women take an important
part. In the cultivation of the soil farmers' wives and daughters share
equally with men the toil of planting and reaping the crops. For
instance, in the cultivation of rice, the most important and the hardest
work of the farmer, it is often the women who plant it spear by spear in
regular rows, and it is they who "puddle" the paddy-fields with their
hands four or five times in the course of the season. In some districts,
however, men and women do this work together. The toil and the weariness
involved cannot be appreciated by one who has not actually shared it.
Fancy, if you can, the fatigue of standing more than ankle deep in mud,
stooping all day long as you set out the tiny rice plants in regular
lines! And at short intervals of a few days each you must repeatedly
puddle the whole paddy-field: that is, stir up the mud with your hands
in order to destroy the sprouting weeds and prevent the soil from caking
and hardening around the tender rice roots, preventing their best
growth. And remember that you must do all this regardless of the
broiling summer sun, or the pelting rain, for the planting must be done
at exactly the right time, and the successive puddlings must follow in
due order. So severe is the strain that, after the planting and each
puddling, the whole village takes a rest. My gardener, an ex-farmer,
speaking of those summer days of toil in the rice-fields, expatiates on
the extreme fatigue and the joy of the rest days, and as women take the
brunt of the stooping-work, theirs is the lion's share of the weariness.
He says that, during the rice-planting season, the women are so
important that those days are called the "women's daimio days," and
adds that we must not forget how during that time the regular work of
the women must also go on, for they must cook the food and care for the
children. For this, indeed, young girls and grandmothers are pressed
into service as far as possible, but the responsibility and care rest
nevertheless on the wives and mothers.
[Illustration: SEPARATING THE WHEAT HEADS FROM THE STRAW AT THE LOOM]
Also in the harvesting and threshing of the rice, barley, wheat, and
millet, women take an important part. But it is needless to enter into
details. Enough to say that, in general farming, women share with
husbands and brothers the heavy toil and fatigue of agriculture. It
should be added that this is not because men shirk heavy work, but only
because Japanese agriculture is so largely done by hand that every
possible worker is pressed into service. As a fact, men do the heaviest
part of the work, preparing the soil for the successive crops and
carrying the heavy loads.
So varied are the modes of agriculture in different parts of Japan that
general statements are dangerous, but I know that in some districts the
weariness and drudgery of rice-planting and puddling are relieved by the
singing or chanting of old folk-songs. The chorus leader intones a
descriptive phrase, oftentimes improvising his own story, and is
answered with a refrain from a dozen or a score of women. A story slowly
evolves as the hours pass, and thus the work is lightened and the time
beguiled.
In spite of fatigue, rice-planting has its charm for those who have been
reared in farmers' homes. It is a time of hope, of social intercourse,
of rest days and festivals, so that even the drudgery of the farmer has
its compensations. Miss Denton, of the Doshisha Girls' School, says it
is interesting to note how country girls get restless at rice-planting
time, and for one reason or another usually succeed in getting excused
from school work, to be off to the homes and share in the toils and joys
of the season.
Tea-picking is probably the pleasantest form of toil undertaken by
farmers' wives and daughters. The labor comes in the spring and early
summer, when the temperature is delightful. It gives opportunity for
social intercourse that is highly appreciated. Rice-planting and
tea-picking constitute the two extremes of laborious and delightful toil
engaged in by Japan's agricultural women.
How many are the women engaged in agriculture? The _Japan Year Book_ for
1914 says that in 1912 there were 5,438,051 farming families,
constituting about 58 per cent. of the entire nation. According to the
_Resume Statistique_ for 1914 the total number of females in Japan
proper, in 1908, was 24,542,383. Omitting those under fifteen years of
age, 8,364,000, and those over sixty years of age, 2,216,000, we have
13,962,000 as the number of able-bodied women, of whom 58 per cent., or
8,077,000, are the farmers' wives and daughters.
In regard to their education it may be said that until the most recent
times they have had practically none. In recent decades, however,
farmers' children have begun to go to school. Until 1908 the elementary
course (compulsory) covered four years, but the results were so poor
that the period has now been extended to six. Four years' schooling does
not give ability to read easily even a simple daily paper, much less an
ordinary book. Our cook, an intelligent and able farming woman, when she
came to us twelve years ago, could not read even the simplest Japanese
characters, and thinks that at present relatively few farmers' wives
have enough education to read papers or write letters. Whether or not
six years' schooling will give this ability remains to be seen. It is
safe to say that to-day Japanese adult farming women, as a whole, lack
book education and have received little, if any, systematic training.
They are accordingly largely controlled by tradition, and it goes
without saying that their level of mental, moral, and spiritual life is
low. The Shinto and Buddhist religions, as they exist among the farmers,
are largely lacking in ethical content; they are rituals rather for
burying the dead and through the use of charms and magic rites they
promise future happiness and present, temporal blessings. Priests, as a
rule, do not seek to cultivate the minds of the people, to strengthen
their wills for moral life, or to elevate their personalities.
Yet it must not be inferred that farming women are without mental
ability or common sense. They are indeed not inferior to the men with
whom they share the burdens and toil of life. As a rule they are a
sturdy, intelligent, self-respecting folk, having ideals of conduct
which include cleanliness, gentleness, and politeness, and in comparison
with the peasant classes of Europe are much to be commended. The women
not seldom appear to better advantage than their husbands in point of
intelligence and common sense, which I have thought might be due to the
greater variety of their daily occupation.
In her excellent work on _Japanese Girls and Women_ Miss Bacon writing
of this class says: "There seems no doubt at all that among the
peasantry of Japan one finds the women who have the most freedom and
independence. Among this class, all through the country, the women,
though hard-worked and possessing few comforts, lead lives of
intelligent, independent labor, and have in the family positions as
respected and honored as those held by women in America. Their lives are
fuller and happier than those of the women of the higher classes, for
they are themselves breadwinners, contributing an important part of the
family revenue, and are obeyed and respected accordingly. The Japanese
lady, at her marriage, lays aside her independent existence to become
the subordinate and servant of her husband and parents-in-law, and her
face, as the years go by, shows how much she has given up, how
completely she has sacrificed herself to those about her. The Japanese
peasant woman, when she marries, works side by side with her husband,
finds life full of interest outside of the simple household work, and,
as the years go by, her face shows more individuality, more pleasure in
life, less suffering and disappointment than that of her wealthier and
less hard-working sister."[1]
[1] Pp. 260, 261.
The home of the average tenant farmer is a small, single-storied,
thatch-roofed building, having usually two or three small rooms
separated by sliding paper screens, and a kitchen with earthen floor.
The smoke escapes as it can, passing through the roof or pervading the
whole house. No privacy of any kind is possible, nor is any need of it
felt. The house is free of furniture, save for one or two chests of
drawers. A closet or two affords a place for the _futon_ (bedding) by
day, and for the little extra clothing. Of course no books are found in
such homes. The main room often has a board floor, with a fire box in
the center, over which is a kettle suspended from the roof. Here the
family eat, and friends gather to chat after the day's work is over. The
food is of the poorest grade in the empire, though usually adequate in
amount. Of course there are well-to-do farmers, not a few, who own
their farms, employ fellow farmers, and cultivate large areas. Their
homes are larger and better, but still in arrangement and structure they
are practically the same. Their sons attend the middle schools and books
and the daily paper are familiar objects.
The economic condition of the farming class may be judged from the fact
that the land cultivated by each family averages three and one-third
acres, which must provide food and clothing for five or six persons. The
great majority of farmers live in little, compact villages, having
populations ranging from 500 to 5,000. There are 12,706 villages under
5,000, and only 1,311 villages, towns, and cities over 5,000. These
facts suggest the nature of the social conditions of the farming
population. They live under the severest limitations of every kind,
physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Yet during the recent era of
Meiji (enlightened rule), from 1868 to 1912, the economic condition of
the agricultural classes made great improvement. My gardener, a man of
sixty, who remembers Japan before the reformation, 1868, says that
farmers now live in luxury. The taxes they pay to-day are slight
compared with what was required of them in former times, when, in his
section, farmers had to give to their Daimio about five twelfth of the
rice crop, while taxes to-day require but one fifth or less. He adds
that families owning three and one third acres of land are well-to-do,
seeing many families have to make their entire living from only one
acre!
Of course, farmers, without education or social demands, require little
beyond the simplest food and shelter. The clothing needed by their
families is the cheapest cotton, with cotton wadding added in the winter
for warmth. The heat of the summer renders much clothing a burden. A
farmer is adequately dressed for the field or his own home if he has on
his loin-cloth. His wife or grown-up daughter, when in the house with
only the immediate members of the family or most intimate acquaintances
present, is satisfied with the _koshimaki_--a strip of cloth some two
feet wide tied around the waist and covering the lower part of the body.
But on the street both men and women conform to the national customs and
wear the kimono.
The Japanese household and bathing customs have served to prevent the
development of that particular type of modesty characteristic of Western
lands. It is difficult for Occidentals to understand this feature of
Japanese civilization, but such an understanding is essential if one
would do justice to the moral life of this people. We may not apply to
them Occidental standards in matters of modesty or dress. They have
standards of their own, to understand and appreciate which requires no
little study.
At this point, I venture a second quotation from Miss Bacon, for she has
studied carefully this subject, which all foreigners seeking to estimate
the nature of Japanese civilization and moral character should not fail
to master. "As one travels," she writes, "through rural Japan in summer,
and sees the half-naked men, women, and children that pour out from
every village on one's route, surrounding the _kuruma_ (wheeled vehicle)
at every stopping place, one sometimes wonders whether there is in the
country any real civilization, whether these half-naked people are not
more savage than civilized. But when one finds everywhere good hotels,
scrupulous cleanliness in all the appointments of toilet and table,
polite and careful servants, honest and willing performance of labor
bargained for, together with the gentlest and pleasantest of manners,
one is forced to reconsider the judgment formed only upon one
peculiarity of the national life, and to conclude that there is
certainly a high type of civilization in Japan, though differing in many
particulars from our own. A careful study of Japanese ideas of decency,
and frequent conversation with refined and intelligent Japanese ladies
upon this subject, has led me to the following conclusion. According to
the Japanese standard, any exposure of the person that is merely
incidental to health, cleanliness, or convenience in doing necessary
work is perfectly modest and allowable; but an exposure, no matter how
slight, that is simply for show, is in the highest degree indelicate. In
illustration of the first part of this conclusion, I would refer to the
open bath-houses, the naked laborers, the exposure of the lower limbs in
wet weather by the turning up of the kimono, the entirely nude condition
of the country children in summer, and the very slight clothing that
some adults regard as necessary about the house or in the country during
the hot season. In illustration of the last point, I would mention the
horror with which many Japanese ladies regard that style of foreign
dress which, while covering the figure completely, reveals every detail
of the form above the waist, and, as we say, shows off to advantage a
pretty figure. To the Japanese mind, it is immodest to want to show off
a pretty figure. As for the ballroom costumes, where neck and arms are
frequently exposed to the gaze of multitudes, the Japanese woman who
would with entire composure take her bath in the presence of others,
would be in an agony of shame at the thought of appearing in public in a
costume so indecent as that worn by many respectable American and
European women."[2]
[2] _Japanese Girls and Women_, 257-260.
This completes our study of the homes and characteristics of five
eighths of Japan. Here the brawn of the nation is reared. Hence come the
sturdy, docile, patient, and courageous soldiers. Here are raised boys
and girls by the hundreds of thousands who must at an early age begin to
earn a living. This is the hunting-ground of those who seek for builders
of railroads, factory hands, domestics, hotel girls, baby-tenders, and
occasionally geishas, concubines, and prostitutes. Considering the
severe economic conditions under which Japan's agricultural classes
live, who can fail to admire their courage and grit, their personal
culture, their even temper and cheerful faces, their innate habits of
courtesy and good breeding, their mutual patience and forbearance, and
their simple artistic tastes and pleasures! Do they not compare well
with the peasant classes of any other nation?