JAPANESE WOMEN AT HOME
I have been eight times to Japan, living in the big European hotels in
Yokohama, Tokio, Kobe, and Nagasaki, stopping for days at a time in the
native inns in the interior, or visiting at the homes of friends. I
decided that my ninth trip to the little island would be different;
consequently we planned a few months’ stay in some out-of-the-way place
where we could keep house and live _à la Japonaise_. We had heard of the
beauties of Hakodate, the most northern port of any size in Japan, and
obtaining a letter to the American Consul, we wrote him asking if it
were possible for him to find us a furnished Japanese house for the
summer months. We were delighted to hear a few days later that he had
found a place for us, the summer home of a rich merchant, situated on
the mountain-side, overlooking the sea, and surrounded by giant
cryptomerias and pines. Needless to say, we were soon on our way to this
paradise.
There were only four berths in the sleeping-car on the Northern Express,
and we engaged two, but were not given the opportunity of using them. At
one of the stations a prince with his retinue came on the train and
pre-empted the entire car. He used only one of the berths, as no one
could sleep over him, nor evidently near him, and on all the long
journey he selfishly occupied the room by himself, while we, in company
with the half-dozen men composing his suite, had to fit ourselves into a
tiny compartment that should have only accommodated four. The men
removed their elaborate outer robes, curled themselves into comfortable
positions, and smoked and chatted or slept until a station of any
importance was neared, when they donned their gowns, threw around their
necks a long, stiff piece of silk on which was embroidered the Imperial
chrysanthemum, and prepared to receive the delegation of townspeople who
were always at the station to present an address to his Imperial
Highness, or to send in an elaborate meal, served on beautifully
lacquered trays.
I had a good look at the prince on his entrance, and found him exactly
like the representations of the daimios of olden times that we see on
the fans and tea-boxes. He had the long, slim, pale face of the
aristocrat, absolutely different from the round-faced Japanese who
comprise the greatest proportion of the island’s population. He looked
as if he might almost belong to another race. I was told by one of his
men that he represented to many thousands of the people a god, as in his
branch of the family a certain godhead had descended from father to son.
When the train stopped for any length of time at a station, the people
came in crowds and knelt, touching their heads to the ground, and one
old lady kept bowing and holding up her hands, with the tears streaming
down her face at the joy of beholding so great a divinity. He looked at
them without seeing them at all, never showing by any motion or sign
that there was anything to be seen except the distant hills. I do not
see how it was possible for any human being to look so thoroughly
impersonal at a crowd of bowing, worshipping people, when he knew he was
the object of all the adoration. Yet he looked at them as if their faces
were windows and their back hair the landscape.
Train travel is interesting in Japan, if one will travel in the ordinary
day coach and watch the people. The Japanese are great travellers, and
the clack-clack of their wooden clogs makes a deafening noise at the
stations, especially on the bridges leading over the tracks. One sees
whole families going for an outing or on a visit to a distant relative.
They come on the train with bundles and packages—most mysterious things
done up in large squares of cloth. They drop their shoes before the seat
and curl their feet under them, and proceed thoroughly to enjoy
themselves. The seats run lengthwise of the cars, and often a little
woman gets tired of looking out of the windows or at her
fellow-passengers opposite, and, turning her back on the car and sitting
practically upright, will lean her face against the side of the window
and go to sleep. The manner in which they can sit upon their feet for
hours impresses a foreigner. At the larger stations tea in tiny pots,
with a little porcelain cup, is brought in by the salesmen, and “bento,”
the lunch of cold rice, pickles, and fish of some description, is sold
in neat boxes, the dainty lunch only costing ten cents, including a pair
of new wooden chopsticks. The Japanese masses, like their prototypes
everywhere, enjoy eating in public, and the car is filled with the
divers and sundry odours of fruit, sweets, tea, and food. They are not
noisy, and always most polite, and because of the dainty clothes of the
women and children, and the variety of their colouring, a few hours can
be spent quite well in studying travelling Japanese close at hand. At
one station a party of pilgrims came on, dressed in white. They belonged
to some club in a far northern village whose members paid a small
assessment each week, and each year lots were chosen to judge who should
benefit by the annual pilgrimage to some famous shrine or to Mount Fuji.
The lucky winners in the lottery joined other pilgrims, donned the
pilgrim’s dress, and under the direction of a guide made the one great
visit of their lives, the wonders of which they would be able to tell
their amazed neighbours when they returned. These would listen with
interest, as it might be their good fortune to draw the lucky number the
coming year.
At the end of our long train ride, Amorri, we went on the small boat
bound for Hakodate, where we were met by the Consul, a jolly, big,
whole-hearted man, who took us, metaphorically speaking, at once to his
bosom and became as a long-lost brother. His wife, much to our surprise,
was a tiny little Japanese woman, no bigger than a good-sized doll, and
as pretty as a picture. They looked so incongruous together that one was
inclined to smile. He weighed at least 250 lb., was over six feet tall;
and I should think that when dressed in all her finery, Mrs. Consul
might have weighed 85 lb. She was a well-educated, well-informed little
woman, who needed all her charm and tact to keep her unruly family in
order. It was a big one, the last, a boy, being the pride of the
father’s heart, and as nearly spoiled as the clever mother would allow
him to be by his worshipping father. When I knew them better it was a
joy to me to see how she managed these children. The father, who had
been at one time captain of a sailing vessel, always spoke to them as if
they were at the top of a mast on a wintry night with a cyclone blowing.
Tommy, the irrepressible, would get up on the window seat, and his
father would hail him in a voice that could be heard by the boats coming
from Kamschatka: “Tommy, get out of that window seat; you’ll break your
neck.” Tommy would not move; again his father’s stentorian tone would
offend the evening air. The quiet little mother would turn and give a
nod of her pretty head to Tommy, and Tommy would immediately climb down
from his perch and proceed to behave himself as young boys should.
The Consulate was partly foreign and partly Japanese, and the children
while at home in the morning dressed in kimona and wooden clogs, but in
the afternoon they were gay in “home” dresses and resplendent in hair
ribbons, only showing by the little turn of the eyes that they were
members of their mother’s race.
[Illustration:
JAPANESE CHILDREN PLAYING.
To face p. 276.]
Soon after our arrival we went to see the place that was to be our home
for the next few months. We did not see the house until we came to the
great gateway with its pointed roof leading into a path shaded by giant
cryptomerias, completely guarding the house from view of the passer-by.
This hillside garden contained about five acres of land, in which were
winding pathways, giant pine-trees, terraces of flowers, and here and
there a tori, a huge bronze stork, a grim stone lantern, or a calmly
reposing Buddha to show us we were in the land of Nippon. We looked out
over the northern ocean, dotted here and there with the sails of
fishing-boats, or saw the smoke of a steamer coming from Kamschatka,
Saghlain, or some of those mysterious northern ports, the names of which
were only places on a map. After listening for awhile to the murmur of
the surf, we visited the interior of the house, which contained five
rooms. The furniture consisted of the matting on the floor, the sliding
“shojis,” the fire-boxes, the cooking utensils, and dishes for the
serving of the meals. It was necessary for us to buy our “futons”—that
is, our bedding; but otherwise the home was completely furnished _à la
Japonaise_. The servant problem was easily solved, as the daughter of
the gardener wished to be our maid, the gardener would run our errands,
and his wife would be the general superintendent of the place. I
expected to do the cooking, as the time would be too short in Hakodate
to train a man in matters culinary. We were soon installed, and then
passed pleasant days in _dolce far niente_, spending our mornings in
trips to the seashore, watching the fishermen come in with their
boatloads of squids. Their arrival was the signal for all the women and
children of the village to flock to the shore and unload the boats,
then, after cleaning and pressing these ugly fish, hang them upon lines
to dry, making the whole ocean front as far as the eye could see a
miniature wash-Monday. We were not allowed to climb the mountain-sides
except to a certain distance, as the hills were heavily fortified, and
at sudden turns we were met by great signs which stated plainly in
English, French, German, Japanese, and Russian that further explorations
were forbidden. We never tried to disobey the laws in Japan, as these
little people are vigorous in their punishment of offenders, to whatever
race they may belong, and I feel that they have been justified in
upholding the manhood of their people. In India and in China you see the
white man treat the native with barbarous cruelty. While travelling once
in India our servant was making up the bed in the compartment we had
engaged on the train. A white man entered, and without one word of
explanation, grabbed our man and beat and kicked him and nearly threw
him out of the car. In reply to our indignant demands as to the cause of
his ill-treatment of our servant, he said that he thought the man had
made a mistake in the berth and was taking one for which he had paid. I
said afterward to Ali, “Why did you not strike him when he treated you
so brutally?” Ali replied: “Oh, mem-sahib, he was a white man. If I had
touched him I would have lain many long days in prison.” In China also,
on one hot day in August I saw a rickshaw coolie, naked to the waist,
with the perspiration running down his face in streams, running swiftly
with a heavy man inside his two-wheeled carriage. In passing by a
crowded corner, he brushed against a white man, who was having his
afternoon stroll. The white man angrily turned, and, grabbing the coolie
by his hair, beat him across his bare back with his cane until he
stopped from sheer exhaustion. The panting, perspiring coolie was
helpless as he could not drop the shafts, and so was compelled to take
the punishment. His patron in the carriage, a richly-dressed Chinese,
dared not interfere because he also was a native and understood there
was no court of justice when it was a question of a white man’s word
against that of the yellow man. They have a saying in China, that when a
Chinese walks along the sidewalk of his own city of Shanghai, he is
pushed into the middle of the road by the American, who only laughs at
him, by the Englishman, who swears at him, and by the German, who kicks
him, but—he is pushed into the middle of the road. This could not happen
in Japan, as the Japanese courts punish severely any one who dares to
lay his hand in violence upon a Japanese, however lowly may be his
station or however strong may be the provocation. While we were in
Yokohama, an officer of an American ship had his hand severely hurt
through the carelessness of a Japanese longshoreman. In his pain and
first flush of anger he knocked the Japanese down, and for his
impatience was compelled to remain six months in jail. His captain and
his Consul tried their best to help him, but it was in vain, and he saw
his ship sail away without him.
I came very near sharing his fate while in Hakodate. The fisherman came
to our doors each morning with his enormous baskets of fish swung over
his shoulders. The maid, her mother, and myself, spent many interesting
moments in turning over the scaly contents of his baskets in order to
make our choice amongst the varied assortment he had for sale. I paid
him by the week, and one morning was called to the kitchen by an
indignant maid, who said the fisherman had greatly overcharged me. The
amount was far too small, it seemed to me, to cause such keen
excitement, and I intended to dismiss the man, saying I would pay him,
but employ him no more. I went over to a bucket of water, and taking up
the long-handled dipper to take a drink, and not noticing that it was
broken, I gave it a little shake toward the fisherman, and said, “Oh, go
away, and don’t make so much noise.” The cup part of the dipper flew off
and hit the indignant fisherman in the eye, whereupon he immediately
shouldered his baskets and started for the magistrate. Needless to say,
I was frightened, and I immediately donned my bonnet and started for the
Consulate. The Consul heard my story and sadly shook his head: “If you
really hit that coolie and he has you arrested, I can do nothing. It
will only make matters worse to have me to interfere, so the best thing
for you to do is to go with me and find that fisherman; offer him half
of your estate, but don’t get mixed up with the law in Japan.” For two
hours we haunted side-streets, where at last we found our man, and,
after a small money payment and a promise to take fish from him for the
rest of the season, and practically binding myself to listen to his
insolence as long as I was in Hakodate, he grudgingly assented to
withdraw his charge.
These itinerant dealers make housekeeping in Japan easy. Men clad in
blue cotton coats with great straw hats on their heads and baskets piled
high with vegetables, come to the door each morning; one passing along
the streets both night and day can hear the cries of the travelling
vendors, selling all that the average householder may require.
Hakodate is filled with crows—monstrous, black, impertinent thieves, who
will come boldly into the kitchen and take the fish from out the
frying-pan. Mornings I would take a pan of corn, and in the rear of the
house upon the hillside, and hitting upon the pan’s side with a spoon,
would soon be surrounded by hundreds of these beady-eyed birds, that are
almost considered sacred in this province. They were so tame that they
would fight at my feet for the kernels, and I would be compelled to push
them from my lap and then, much to the maid’s disgust, the greedy birds
would follow me into the house.
We used to play a game, the crows and I. I would pound on the pan until
I had summoned fifty or sixty, then I would start the song, “Onward,
Christian Soldiers,” and rapping on the pan for accompaniment, would
march solemnly at the head of my serious, expectant army, up hill and
down dale, through the house, out again, down the small paths, until
even the maid who considered the crows her enemies, would be compelled
to laugh.
Soon I found that if I was to live as the Japanese, I certainly should
dress in the clothes of the country, as European clothes and shoes are
not comfortable in Japanese houses. All my friends were Japanese, and I
found I must conform to their customs so far as was possible if I would
be happy and not an object of curiosity. Consequently I went with the
wife of our Consul and passed two delightful hours in choosing kimonas,
which, if I had been allowed to exercise my taste, would have been far
too gay for one of my years. I always associated kimonas with pinks and
blues and riotous colours, but I found that, being a married woman, I
must confine my choice of colours to greys and browns and soft-toned
mauves. I could indulge my love for ornamentation in the obis, as these
may be of stiff brocades in rose and gold, or purple and gold, or, in
fact, any colour one may wish. I found also that the Japanese dress
itself may not be expensive, but the price of the obis is ruinous to a
small pocketbook. It is in these last articles of adornment that the
Japanese lady spends her husband’s money. She buys obis and puts them
away in her treasure-chest, only bringing them to the light of day on
occasions of festivity. The tying of the obi is by no means a simple
process, and I could never learn its intricacies. The end must be of a
certain length, the big bow must be just so correctly arranged or else
it shows that one is not _à la mode_. My friends were always lengthening
an end or tying a little tighter the roll that gave the obi the correct
tilt at the back. I found it necessary to practise privately for several
days walking in the clogs before I dared try them in public. The
Japanese have three kinds of clogs—high ones raised by two pieces of
wood three or four inches from the ground and with a piece of leather as
a mud-guard for use in wet weather; another pair of dress clogs were
necessary, with the plain wooden sole covered with fine matting; and
still another pair of sandals, which were for use around the garden or
in places that did not necessitate rough walking. The two pieces of cord
that pass between the great and the first toe, and by which the clog is
held on the foot, compelled me to wear the Japanese sock, which is made
of white cotton, like a mitten, the great toe being separated from the
rest of the foot. These socks are short, only coming to the ankle, and
are fastened by two or three metal clasps. The shoes are never worn in
the house, always being left at the doorways, the thick cotton sole of
the stocking protecting the foot. It would be as insulting to walk on
the clean matting of a Japanese house as it would be to walk on the
snowy damask of your hostess’s dining-table. After a few falls and many
awkward movements I found the Japanese foot covering most comfortable,
the foot being absolutely free; but I soon learned that my American
stride did not conform to the close-fitting dress of the kimona, as with
it the feet should not be set apart and one should slightly “toe in” in
order that the folds of the kimona do not fly open. In one way Japanese
dress is not expensive, as the Japanese lady, whatever her rank or
wealth, does not wear jewellery—no necklaces, nor bracelets, nor
ear-rings, nor brooches; even rings are an innovation brought in with
foreigners. Her only jewels are the clasp of her obi fastener, generally
a piece of chased gold, and a couple of ornamental hairpins or a comb
for the hair.
I did not attempt the hair-dressing, as that is a most complicated
affair, and must be left to the attentions of a hair-dresser, who comes
to the homes once or twice a week and makes the elaborate coiffures that
add so much to the beauty of a Japanese face. Each age has its coiffure,
and a woman never tries to disguise her age in Japan, because by her
dress and style of hair-dressing she frankly confesses the stage she has
reached in life. There is the baby with her shaven head, then the little
queue tied on the crown; afterward the hair is cut square across the
neck, like the little dolls we see in the London shops; then when she is
ten years old the hair is divided and made into a bow knot tied with a
piece of ornamental paper. As she arrives at young ladyhood there is the
elaborate “shimada,” which in the case of the young woman is very large,
and, if Nature has not been generous, helped out with tresses bought in
the shops. The married woman has a special coiffure which grows smaller
with age, until, when she is a matron of forty, the age when the woman
of the Orient considers herself an old woman, it is quite small. If the
woman is so unfortunate as to lose her husband, she cuts her hair, and
thus shows all the world that she is a widow. The Japanese mature early,
and old age comes to them sooner than it does to people from the West. A
Japanese proverb says that man lives but fifty years, and rarely does
his span exceed seventy years. In former days old age began at fifty,
and a man then considered himself unfit for business and made over his
name and property to his son, passing the rest of his life in ease
without the cares of business. Old age is not a burden to the Japanese
woman, but is a paradise to be looked for longingly. Then she, who has
perhaps been subservient to the mother of her husband all her married
life, knows that she will be the head of her household, with her sons
and daughters ready to obey her, and, because of her age and motherhood,
respected and holding a position in life denied her as a young woman.
Many of these quiet, soft-voiced mothers of Japan were brought to call
upon me by Mrs. Consul. They taught me how to serve the tea, the
proper way of bowing, and even tried to make of me a good follower of
the Law by taking me with them to the temples and visiting shrines and
holy places. One kindly woman brought me a tablet for my
“august-spirit-dwelling,” which she placed in a tiny model of a Shinto
temple and put above the inner doorway of the hall, where I was
supposed to burn before it each morning candles and incense, and keep
the little cups for rice and water filled. I was well provided with
gods, as another friend gave me a Buddha for my household shrine, and
all the paraphernalia of service with which to worship him.
Below us on the hillside was the swagger tea-house of the town, and the
tinkle of the samisens and the singing of the pretty girls came to us
faintly until late into the night. This pretty music, mingled with the
sound of the surf upon the shore, was always the last sound we heard at
night after the maid had placed the night-light, the tobacco-box, and
the brazier for the tea at our head, and then had knelt and said
“Goodnight.” In the morning we were wakened by a softly murmured “O
Hayo,” and a tray of tea was respectfully slid across the matting to
give us strength to begin the morning’s work.
While in Hakodate I made the acquaintance of many Japanese ladies and
learned their customs and the manner of their life, which is controlled
by thoughts and ideals entirely different from those entertained by
women of the Western world. I think I much prefer the woman of the old
school, with her charming manners, her elaborate bows, and her
antiquated superstitions and beliefs, to her daughter, who, like her
sister of China, India, and Egypt, is trying too hard to wear clothes
not made for her, and to adapt customs and usages for which she is not
formed temperamentally or physically. The customs of the modern world
will come to the woman of Japan, but they must be adapted to her
conditions and not be taken _en masse_.
One of the most beautiful characteristics of the Japanese is their
reverence for old age and their intense love for children. Japan has
justly been called the baby’s paradise, and certainly in no country does
the home life so thoroughly revolve around the children as it does in
Japan. Like all Eastern women, the desire for children is the most
ardent wish of the Japanese woman’s heart. The childless wife will move
heaven and earth in her desire to gain the blessing of motherhood. She
will visit watering-places, offer prayers at temples, make long, irksome
pilgrimages, wear amulets, drink strange decoctions, and allow herself
to be imposed upon and robbed by every charlatan who claims a knowledge
that will help her gain the craving of her heart—a child. It will,
therefore, be imagined with what eagerness the arrival of a little
stranger is awaited in the home, and the happiest day in the girl-wife’s
life is the day on which they tell her she is the mother of a son.
As soon as the event takes place, a special messenger is dispatched to
notify friends and relatives while letters of announcement are sent to
those who are not so closely related in friendship to the family. All
thus notified must then make a visit to the new baby and either send or
bring with them a present. Toys or clothing, always accompanied by eggs
or a fish to bring good luck, come in great profusion, and when baby is
about thirty days old, return presents must be made to all who
remembered him at time of birth. When baby is seven days old he receives
his name, and when he is thirty-one—or if a girl, when she is
thirty-three—days old, the first important occasion of his life must be
observed. He is dressed in his best and gayest garments, and,
accompanied by members of his family, is taken to a temple and placed
under the protection of one of the Shinto deities, who is supposed to
become the guardian of the child through life. This is a day for
present-giving also, and one especial gift must come to the child, a
papier mâché dog, which is always placed at the head of the child’s bed
at night as a charm against evil influences.
The infant should not walk until it is a year old; but if it is so
precocious that it commences to toddle before that time, a small bag of
rice is laid upon its back, and it is made to stumble and fall. To walk
before its first birthday is a sign that it will die young or else
become a resident of a distant land. There are many superstitions
connected with the early life of a baby. If he sucks his fingers before
he does his thumb, he will be a help to his parents in their old age. If
he crawls out of his covers at night, he will rise in the world, but if
he snuggles down in the bed and is inclined to crawl towards the foot,
it augurs that a downward course is his fate in life. If many of the
children of a family have died in infancy, the nervous mother will make
for this last gift of the gods a dress composed of thirty-three pieces
of cloth collected from thirty-three different families, or she will
shave his head until he is seven years old, or give him a girl’s name
instead of a boy’s, thus deceiving the gods who covet her treasure. If
baby has prickly heat, the first egg plant of the season is hung over
the door; while suspending the empty rice-pot, still hot, over the
baby’s head for a few moments will make him immune from that affliction
of childhood, the measles. It passes its days tied to the back of little
brother or sister or nurse until it can walk, then when it is two years
old the fifteenth of November is a great day for all the babies. They
are taken to the temple and the blessing of the gods is invoked, and the
priests purify their bodies by waving over them a sacred wand. This is
the occasion for showing new clothes and calling upon all friends, who
make presents to the child.
At three or four years children are sent to a kindergarten, and at six
years they enter the Primary Schools, where there is a six-years’
compulsory course for both boys and girls. Then it only rests with the
parents whether the child receives a higher education, as there are in
all towns and villages a Middle School for boys and a High School for
girls. The average girl stops her education with the Primary School, or
at most with the High School, but there is a University in Tokio where
the girl may complete her education and fit herself for a vocation. But
if she has been six years at Primary School and four years at High
School, she is sixteen years old, and of a marriageable age, although
the average girl does not marry until she is eighteen or nineteen.
There are a great many accomplishments which it is necessary for a
Japanese girl of good family to know. The knowledge of needlework is so
general that it really is not considered an accomplishment. But the art
of letter-writing must be known by all accomplished young ladies, and
the tea ceremony, which is the strictest and most complicated of all the
ceremonies which surround the cultured Japanese, must be thoroughly
learned by the daughter of the house. Each movement is regulated by
custom, and a mistake in turn of hand or position of the body or the
omission of any of the minute details in regard to the bows and
salutations in offering, receiving, and returning the cups would show a
lack of proper training. The young girl is taught the arrangement of
flowers, which is an art by itself in Japan. In the sitting-room of a
Japanese home there is a single vase of flowers sitting in the tiny
alcove, and they would lose half of their attraction if they were not in
some manner symbolical in tone and colour with the picture upon the
kakemono which hangs above them. The young girl is often taught to play
upon the koto, a kind of zither, although the national musical
instrument is the samisen, which is played everywhere—at home, in
story-tellers’ halls and theatres, and at every tea-house party. Girls
start to learn this instrument at a very early age, because it is
necessary to learn it while the fingers are still pliant. It takes time
to learn these instruments, as there are no scores and the tunes must be
committed to memory. Women teachers come to the home to teach the girls
in all these arts, and often the samisen teacher has been a famous
geisha, whose support now is teaching the music that once made her
welcome at the dinner-parties of gay Japan.
[Illustration:
AN OUTDOOR KITCHEN IN JAPAN.
To face p. 290.]
After mastering the accomplishments, her business in life is now to
marry, and few Japanese maidens think seriously of any other lot in life
than that of marrying and becoming the mothers of future Japanese. Japan
is more progressive than any other Oriental country, if we except
Burmah, in that it allows the girl to exercise a certain amount of
choice in the selection of a husband. There are never cases of love
matches, but if she positively objects to a man who is proposed to her,
she is seldom forced to marry him. It would be thought most immodest if
she refused to marry a man until she loved him, as love is supposed to
come with marriage and the advent of the children. Only simple
toleration is expected before the marriage. The offices of a go-between
are asked to assist in the search for a husband or wife, unless the
match is made by friends of the interested parties. When the future
husband has been selected, the go-between, who must always be a married
man, as his wife takes an important part in the transactions, brings
about a meeting of the young couple as if by accident. They may be
strolling in a garden looking at the hanging wistaria, or meet at a
theatre, where the families are introduced, and the two most concerned
have a chance to take a good look at each other, and the next day, when
the anxious match-maker comes to the house to learn whether his choice
has met with favour, they will give their consent, or the match will be
broken off, and the go-between will start again the hunt for an eligible
alliance. If everything is satisfactory, a lucky day is appointed for
the formal proposal, presents are exchanged, and then all look forward
to the wedding. A couple of days before the wedding the bride’s
trousseau and household goods are sent to her new home, and its
elaborateness is only limited by the father’s wealth. Yet there are some
things considered indispensable in the outfit of a bride, such as a
bureau, a writing-table, a work-box, two of the little trays on which
meals are served, together with the full dining outfit, and two or more
complete sets of bed furnishings. If she is of a rich family, quite
likely the clothing she will bring with her will last her entire life,
as styles do not change so radically as to make gowns go so completely
out of fashion that they cannot be worn. A wedding is a most expensive
proceeding for the father of the bride, as each member of the groom’s
family—father, mother, brothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins, even the
servants—must all receive a present to mark the joyous occasion. The
wedding itself is in the presence of only a few witnesses, and consists
in a few formal acts, the most important of which is the drinking “three
times three” cups of saki together. To make the marriage conform to the
laws of Japan, the bride’s name is removed from her family register and
transferred to that of her husband’s family.
After the ceremony there are entertainments in the new home and at the
home of the bride’s parents, and then the couple settle down into the
married state for two or three months, when the ultra-smart give a
series of entertainments to the friends who had no formal announcement
of the marriage.
The young wife does not have the happiness of setting up an
establishment of her own, but she must go to the home of her husband’s
father. The mother-in-law question is a very serious one in Japan,
because she is absolutely the head of the household, and the young wife
has to submit in all things to her mother-in-law’s will. This is
especially serious for the modern Japanese girl, who perhaps has been
educated in the Government school, if she is compelled to go to the home
of a conservative old-time woman. Naturally, the mother cannot
understand why the ideas with which she herself was brought up should
not be good enough for the other, and finds fault with, what are in her
eyes, outlandish ways introduced by the new regime. These conservative
women are always loud in praise of the old state of things, and believe
that the world is going to ruin, socially, morally, and physically,
because of the innovations brought into their homes by their progressive
sons and daughters.
In addition to the parents of her husband, the wife has to win the
affection of his brothers, sisters-in-law, and sisters, and her life is
often made intolerable by the envies, jealousies, and petty
faultfindings of the many women beneath the new roof-tree. The
patriarchal life prevails in Japan as in all Eastern countries, and the
successful man finds he must support a crowd of less successful
relatives, whose claims are not admitted by law, but whose appeals on
the score of kinship cannot be ignored, as custom allows those related
by blood or marriage to look for help to the least unfortunate among
them. The new civil code forces the support of parents, brothers,
sisters, and other near relatives upon the head of the household, in
addition to that of his wife and children. Thus a man is handicapped in
life and has to spend the money he might otherwise use in educating his
children in the support of uncles, aunts, and cousins, and perhaps a
host of his wife’s relations. From the social point of view this is
undoubtedly an excellent system, as it relieves the nation of the
support of its poor, but it bears heavily upon the individual, and many
a young man’s ambition has been shattered and his road to success
blocked by the sordid cares and petty troubles caused by the necessity
of maintaining a large household.
The great authority on the conduct of women who marry was written by a
Japanese scholar, based on the teaching of the Chinese sages. In it the
wife is told she must give unconditional obedience to her husband, who
is in every respect her superior and the absolute lord and master of her
body and soul; whatever he does is right and she may not even murmur.
She occupies a position in her husband’s household practically of an
upper servant. She must not frequent public resorts, nor go sight-seeing
with the wealth her husband may obtain, and until she is forty years old
is not to be seen in company, but to remain at home attending to her
household and her children. This sounds very well, but women are women
the world over; and although Japanese wives are gentle, docile, and
obedient, yet they have a virility and strength of character that compel
the respect of their husbands, and in their own domain their word is
law.
In the olden time each Japanese girl was supposed to know the precepts
contained in a book called “Greater Learning for Women,” written by a
famous scholar several hundred years ago. For nearly two hundred years
it was one of the indispensable articles that a bride took with her to
her new home, but the present modern Japanese maiden knows very little
of the “Greater Learning.” I am afraid, indeed, that she is more
thoroughly conversant with a parody of these famous precepts, which has
been written by a young man of modern Japan. This is so radical that it
is forbidden in the libraries of the mission schools in the fear that
the Japanese girl will imbibe too early the tendencies fatal to the
happiness of the Eastern woman, as she takes her first step from her
secluded doorway into the path that leads to the higher learning of the
Western world.
Japanese women are womanly, kindly, gentle, and pretty, and perhaps they
owe this gentleness and courtesy to the precepts taught by their old
sages.
According to Shingoro Takaishi, in his “Wisdom and Women of Japan,” the
famous moralist left the following instructions to help women in their
perilous journey through life—
“Seeing that it is a girl’s destiny, on reaching womanhood, to go to a
new home, and live in submission to her father-in-law, it is even more
incumbent upon her than it is on a boy to receive with all reverence her
parents’ instructions. Should her parents, through their tenderness,
allow her to grow up self-willed, she will infallibly show herself
capricious in her husband’s house, and thus alienate his affection;
while, if her father-in-law be a man of correct principles, the girl
will find the yoke of these principles intolerable. She will hate and
decry her father-in-law, and the end of these domestic dissensions will
be her dismissal from her husband’s house and the covering of herself
with ignominy. Her parents, forgetting the faulty education they gave
her, may, indeed, lay all the blame on the father-in-law. But they will
be in error; for the whole disaster should rightly be attributed to the
faulty education the girl received from her parents.
“More precious in a woman is a virtuous heart than a face of beauty. The
vicious woman’s heart is ever excited; she glares wildly around her, she
vents her anger on others, her words are harsh and her accent vulgar.
When she speaks it is to set herself above others, to upbraid others, to
envy others, to be puffed up with individual pride, to jeer at others,
to outdo others—all things at variance with the way in which a woman
should walk. The only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedience,
chastity, mercy, and quietness.
“A woman has no particular lord. She must look to her husband as her
lord, and must serve him with all worship and reverence, not despising
or thinking lightly of him. The great lifelong duty of a woman is
obedience.
“A woman shall be divorced for disobedience to her father-in-law or
mother-in-law. A woman shall be divorced if she fail to bear children,
the reason for this rule being that women are sought in marriage for the
purpose of giving men posterity. A barren woman should, however, be
retained if her heart be virtuous and her conduct correct and free from
jealousy, in which case a child of the same blood must be adopted;
neither is there any just cause for a man to divorce a barren wife if he
have children by a concubine. Lewdness is a reason for divorce. Jealousy
is a reason for divorce. Leprosy or any like foul disease is a reason
for divorce. A woman shall be divorced who, by talking overmuch and
prattling disrespectfully, disturbs the harmony of kinsmen and brings
trouble on her household. A woman shall be divorced who is addicted to
stealing.
“All the ‘Seven Reasons for Divorce’ were taught by the sage. A woman
once married and then divorced has wandered from the ‘way,’ and is
covered with great shame, even if she should enter into a second union
with a man of wealth and position.
“It is the chief duty of a girl living in the parental house to practise
filial piety towards her father and mother. But after marriage her duty
is to honour her father-in-law and mother-in-law, to honour them beyond
her father and mother, to love and reverence them with all ardour, and
to tend them with practise of every filial piety. While thou honourest
thine own parents, think not lightly of thy father-in-law. Never should
a woman fail, night and morning, to pay her respects to her
father-in-law and mother-in-law. Never should she be remiss in
performing any tasks they may require of her. With all reverence must
she carry out, and never rebel against, her father-in-law’s commands. On
every point must she inquire of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, and
abandon herself to their direction. Even if thy father-in-law and
mother-in-law be pleased to hate and vilify thee, be not angry with
them, and murmur not. If thou carry piety towards them to its utmost
limits, and minister to them in all sincerity, it cannot be but that
they will end by becoming friendly to thee.”
There is a sword of Damocles always hanging over the head of the
Japanese woman—that is, the fear of divorce. Among the higher classes
the dread of scandal and gossip serves as a restraint upon the too free
use of the power of divorce, but even now one meets many respectable and
respected persons who, some time in their life, have gone through such
an experience. Obtaining a divorce is not such a complicated affair as
it is in America. It is enough that the parties agree to separate and
make a declaration, witnessed by two reputable witnesses, at a local
magistrate’s office, and the divorce takes place by mutual consent. As
in the case of marriage the consent of the parents or guardians of a
girl under twenty-five years of age and a man who is under thirty must
be obtained, so this consent of parents or guardians is necessary before
a divorce may be granted. Then the domicile of the wife is retransferred
in the books of the registrar from the domicile of the family in which
she was married to that of her original family. If one of the parties
concerned refuse to give their consent to the divorce an application is
made to the courts. There are several grounds upon which judicial
divorce is granted—first, for bigamy; secondly, the wife may be divorced
for adultery, but not the husband, unless the crime has been committed
with a married woman, when the unfaithful wife and her lover are liable
to penal servitude for a term not exceeding two years, if the charge is
brought by the outraged husband. The man cannot be punished alone; the
woman must share his fate. As in many European countries, marriage is
forbidden between the respondent and the co-respondent in a divorce
case.
Another, and one of the chief causes for divorce in Japan, are the
complications that naturally arise from the many people living in one
house. Either party may seek divorce if ill-treated or insulted by the
parents or grandparents of the other, and mothers-in-law, with their
hard tongues and bitter words, are the frequent causes of separation of
husband and wife. One provision of the law which serves to make most
mothers endure any evil of their married life rather than sue for
divorce is the fact that the children belong to the father, and the
mother returns childless to her father’s house. In this country, where
the woman is economically dependent upon her menfolk, even if she were
allowed to take the children, quite likely they would not be made
welcome in a home where there are always too many mouths to feed;
therefore the Japanese mother puts up with many brutalities and
heartaches in order to keep with her the only bright things she has in
life, her children.
The Japanese wife leads a very busy life. In all but the very wealthiest
and most aristocratic families the wife and daughters do a large part of
the housework. In a house with no furniture, no carpets, no pictures, no
stoves or furnaces, no windows to wash, no latest styles to be imitated
in the making of clothing, there is not so much work in the care of a
house as there is in the Western world, where the rooms are filled with
a multitude of unnecessary articles that seem only made to give toil to
women. But because of the lack of conveniences it takes time to properly
care for the rooms in a Japanese house. Every morning there are the beds
to be rolled up and placed in the closets, the mosquito-nets to be taken
down, the rooms to be swept, dusted, and aired; and the veranda floor is
polished several times a day as if it were a precious piece of silver.
The cooking and washing of the dishes take a great deal of time, as the
former is done over a tiny charcoal stove and the dishes are washed in
cold water. There is not a moment of time that the wife is idle, as
there is always the family sewing to be superintended, the mats and
cushions to be recovered, the wadding to be renewed in the bed coverings
and the winter kimonas. Many of the Japanese dresses must be taken to
pieces whenever they are washed, and the wet breadths smoothed upon a
board and placed in the sun to dry. The careful housewife makes over the
older daughters’ dresses for the younger daughters, and these clothes
are washed, turned, dyed, and made over and over again so long as there
is a shred of the original material left to work upon.
The Japanese believe that a woman passes through three critical stages
in her journey through life. If she passes her nineteenth, her
thirty-third, and her thirty-seventh years safely, she has a chance of
living to a good old age and seeing her children and her grandchildren
grow up around her. Her most critical year is her thirty-third, and not
only this year itself, but the years immediately preceding and following
are considered inauspicious. Consequently there are three years during
which period women will refrain as much as possible from acts which may
appear like tempting Providence. When a woman attains her sixtieth
birthday it is an occasion for great festivities, when she invites all
her friends to a dinner to celebrate this wonderful event. If a man or
woman should have occasion to celebrate their seventieth birthday, they
distribute among their friends and relatives large red and white cakes
with the character signifying “longevity” written upon them, and with
each increasing year the old man or woman gain in the respect of their
community.
When the last illness comes to father and mother it would be considered
most unfilial for any of the children not to be present at the parent’s
death-bed. When all is over the son or the wife wets his lips with
water, and so universal is this custom that the expression “to wet the
dying lips with water” has come to signify the tending of a patient in
his last illness. One of the reasons why the Japanese believe that the
wife should be younger than the husband is that she may be able to
fulfil this last office for her loved one.
It is known that death is in the room by the placing upside down of a
screen before the bed, and the quilt covering the body is reversed, the
foot covering the dead man’s breast. A white cloth is laid over the
face, as its exposure would be an obstacle to the soul’s journey on its
road to the other world. Everything done for the dead is the reverse of
that done for the living; for example, in the tub for the last bath cold
water is poured first, then hot water added until it is of the right
temperature. The head is shaved by touching it with the razor in small
patches instead of running it continuously as in life. The burial
garment is made by two women relatives, sewing with the same piece of
thread in opposite directions, and the kimona is folded from right to
left instead of from left to right as a man would wear it ordinarily.
Mittens, leggings, and sandals are worn, the sandals being tied on the
foot with the heel in the place of the toe, to signify that the dead
must not return, drawn back by the love of the world. Around the neck is
suspended a bag of Buddhist charms, and a small coin, or picture of a
coin, with which to pay the ferryman. If the wife dies, the husband does
not publicly mourn for her, although her children do; but if the husband
dies the wife should mourn the rest of her life, and she often cuts off
her long hair and places it in the coffin of her husband, showing that
she resolves to be always faithful to his memory. In a child’s coffin a
doll is placed to keep the child company on its first journey without
mother or father. The last rite is to cover the body with incense-powder
or dried aniseed, and then it is ready for the funeral ceremonies.
A funeral procession in Japan is an imposing affair. The corpse, in its
palanquin or in the modern hearse, is preceded by men carrying large
white lanterns on poles, bundles of flowers stuck in bamboo pedestals,
stands of artificial flowers, and birds in enormous cages, which are set
free at the temples as an act of merit. The priests, friends, and
relatives move slowly and sadly to the temple, in which there is a
service, then the bier is taken to the crematory by the chief mourner
and the near relatives. The ashes are removed the next day to their
permanent home in the public crematorium or in the temple burying-ground
of the family.
For fifty days after the death incense and lights are kept burning
before the tablet of the deceased at his late home, and prayers are
offered at the grave for the same length of time. A priest comes from
the temple every seventh day to offer incense and prayers with the
sorrowing family, who believe that for forty-nine days the spirit of
their dead wanders in the dark space that lies between this world and
the next. Every seventh day it makes a step forward and is helped by the
prayers of loved ones left behind. The sorrowing wife is taught that the
spirit cannot tear itself away from its old home and hovers over it, and
unless it is absolutely necessary no loving woman would remove from her
home until the forty-nine days were past, for fear of giving sorrow to
the spirit of her husband, if he did not find her in the place where
they had passed together their years of happiness.
The dead are not quickly forgotten in Japan. Memorial services take
place the forty-eighth day, the hundredth day, and the first anniversary
of the death, and services are held for even fifty years. Lafcadio Hearn
expresses the reverence which these people give their loved ones who
have gone before them by saying:—
“In this worship we give the dead they are made divine. And the thought
of this tender reverence will temper with consolation the melancholy
that comes with age to all of us. Never in our Japan are the dead too
quickly forgotten; by simple faith they are still thought to dwell among
their beloved and their place within the home remains holy. When we pass
to the land of shadows we know that loving lips will nightly murmur our
names before the family shrine, that our faithful ones will beseech us
in their pain and bless us in their joy. We will not be left alone upon
the hillside, but loving hands will place before our tablet the fruit
and flowers and dainty food that we were wont to like, and will pour for
us the fragrant cup of tea or amber rice-wine. Strange changes are
coming upon this land, old customs are vanishing, old beliefs are
weakening, the thoughts of to-day will not be the thoughts of to-morrow;
but of all this we will know nothing. We dream that for us as for our
mothers the little lamps will burn on through the generations; we see in
fancy the yet unborn, the children of our children’s children, bowing
their tiny heads and making the filial obeisance before the tablet that
bears our family name.”
CONCLUSION
The ocean that geographically divides the East from the West is not more
wide nor deep than is that invisible ocean between the minds of the
woman of the Orient and the woman of the Occident. A sympathetic
understanding between peoples whose ideals have been so differently
constructed, and who have had such radically opposite training, is next
to impossible. No matter what the Western woman may do in the hope of
touching the emotional life of the woman of the East, she soon finds
that further progress is barred, that a gate before unseen has closed,
shutting her out from the inner life.
I knew a very advanced woman in Southern India who had broken caste and
who went about freely, mingling with both Europeans and Indians with the
same freedom as an American woman would. She dressed in a costume
partially Indian and partially European, wore slippers, and arranged her
hair in the European fashion. One day I went to her house rather earlier
than the usual hour for calling. I hardly recognized her, as she was the
Indian woman of the home, dressed in a sari, her hair hanging down her
back in braids, and with heavy anklets over her bare feet. She blushed
and said: “Oh, I do not want you to see me like this,” and she did not
understand me when I told her that I felt that I was seeing the real
woman for the first time.
I thought many times in my long residence in the East that I had really
entered into the life and understood the thoughts, hopes, and ambitions
of the Eastern woman, when at some thoughtless word or action on my part
a wall of fog would come between us, with a thick, impenetrable,
blanket-like mist, made up of custom, tradition, and the results of
environment, and when it would lift we would find our little boats far
from each other on a sea of mutual misunderstanding.
Despite our incapacity to enter into the soul life of this ancient East,
we find ourselves fascinated and bewitched by the charm of these
secluded women of the Orient, who live a life of instinctive
unselfishness, their days given to the making of happiness for others.
We say: “Must there always remain the width of the world between the
Eastern woman and the woman of the West? Will the education which is
being grasped so eagerly by the woman of the Orient lessen the distance,
and will it break down the barriers?” Only time will tell. The children
of the present boys and girls in school and college will have had the
foundation of the three generations of intellectual training, and will
have learned to take what is best for them from Western knowledge and
use it as a means of breaking the iron bands of ignorance, superstition,
and loyalty to old-time custom and tradition, which stands an immovable
mountain in the pathway of true friendship between the woman of the West
and the woman of the East.
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON
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Transcriber’s note:
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
3. The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed
in the public domain.