WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
In culture, Japanese women are not in line with the women of Western races; but there is a steady advance in female education, and the system of tuition is improving in the girls' schools. The Japanese women are alert in mind, receptive, and fond of learning. They are highly susceptible to the influence of the West, and year by year they are becoming more Europeanized in the tendency of their thought and customs.
Marriage is easily dissoluble in Japan. According to the old code, a man could dismiss his wife on almost any pretext, such as domestic incapacity, volubility, jealousy, quarrelling with the husband's relations, or for mere suspicion of unfaithfulness. A barbarous ordeal for adulteresses was practised in former days.
The author of "A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan" tells us that, generally speaking, married life is serene and happy. Wives do not resent the practice of concubinage. "Steeped as we are in the laws and prejudices of the West," says this writer, "it is not easy for us to judge of these questions. There is but one wife, properly speaking, and it has rarely, if ever, been heard of that any attempt was made to intrude any other woman into her place." The supremacy of the wife is always observed, and the mistress occupies an inferior station.
Hetairism in Japan is a recognised profession, and the institution lacks many of the repellent char-
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