Women Under Polygamy/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV
POLYGYNY IN JAPAN
The forms of legal and religiously-sanctioned plural marriage, as practised in Mohammedan countries and under Hinduism, are not known in Japan. It is, therefore, incorrect to speak of the Japanese people as polygamous. Co-habitation with more than one woman is not uncommon in Japan, but there is only one lawful wife. The subordinate "wives" are not married to their husbands. They have no real share in domestic duties, and none of the rights of the licit wife; they are in reality concubines, or "kept women," and cannot take the status of the wife.
The conjugal life of the Japanese is not very unlike that of the British people. There, as in our own country, the single, sanctioned union of the sexes is the custom. In England a proportion of married men live in overt marriage, and covertly visit a mistress, or more than one mistress. In Japan there is no secrecy in regard to concubinage. A proportion of well-to-do men may legally and openly maintain a concubine beside the wife. There is no need for clandestine intrigues and hypocritical subterfuges.
It is not easy for the Western mind to probe to the inner souls of our friends and allies of Japan. We are sundered by a wide differentiation in thought, religion, ideal, and aspiration. We cling tenaciously to life, and most of us dread death. The Japanese are, like other Eastern people, philosophic fatalists. But in many salient characteristics they are not Oriental. They are touched with the spirit of the West; they assimilate alien influences very readily.
Japan is an astounding country. In this empire, side by side with an advanced civilisation, the uncouth Ainus still live as in barbaric days. Culture and colleges flourish amidst curious superstitions and antique customs. Education is free and compulsory, and a number of the secondary schools are state-aided. The training of girls is not neglected. There are State universities, technical schools, and academies of medicine.
In ancient times group-marriage was the custom in Japan. The clans held together, and there was but little marriage outside of the group. Concubinage seems to have been an institution in the early primitive period. Rulers had one wife and many hired or purchased women; and at a later stage the regal harem was established, with an empress as the sole wife, and a number of concubines.
The matriarchal influence is shown in the laws of inheritance. Lubbock and others state that property descends to the first-born child, whether a boy or a girl. A husband takes his wife's name when marrying an heiress; a wife assumes the name of an heir when she weds him. Husbands and wives stand as representatives of property.
Japanese marriage is undergoing changes, such as the granting of free choice to brides. But Mr. Douglas Sladen[1] tells us that women are far from sex-equality in Japan. Implicit obedience is enjoined upon women to fathers and husbands, and widows must obey the eldest son. The Japanese wife, in the view of this author, is simply a drudge for her spouse. Quoting from "The Daigaku Onna," Mr. Sladen writes:—
"The only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedience, chastity, mercy, and quietness. … A woman should look upon her husband as if he were Heaven itself, and never weary of thinking how she may yield to her husband, and thus escape celestial castigation."
Also, the faults of women are "indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness." It might be suggested that these are also the imperfections of men.
The Japanese woman is trained in subordination to her male relatives and to her husband. She does not rebel against this submission; on the contrary, she respects the teaching of obedience. There is very little active feminine discontent. The women are happy in their protected, but subservient, state, and their chief aim is to please their menfolk. They are deeply attached to their children, and they are excellent mothers and good housekeepers. They are skilled cooks, and deft with the needle.
Although children are not indulged to the extent enjoyed by the children of the West, they are always treated kindly by the parents. Obedience seems to be a natural trait of the women and children of Japan. It is possible that, under European influence, the Japanese women will rebel against the restrictions of their lives. The spread of female education is almost certain to cause discontent and probably rebellion against the harsher conventions. But at present the signs of revolt are few indeed. The Japanese woman is happier than her sisters of the Western nations.
At an early period in the history of Japan there was a powerful "social purity movement." Drastic laws were enforced to promote chastity, conjugal fidelity, and continence. Like all such schemes, when despotic and ill-judged, the crusade utterly failed.[2] The concubinate probably grew in the reaction that followed this attempted reform of sexual morality. Every man who had the means and the opportunity took to himself another woman besides his legal wife.
In the imperial seraglio the women were secluded and vowed to secrecy. The Emperor was permitted to maintain a large crowd of concubines, but only the wife was deemed a royal personage.
The women of Japan rival their Burmese sisters in physical charm and amiable traits of character. They are vivacious, intelligent and domesticated, with æsthetic taste in dress and the decoration of their houses. In literature they have excelled men. The most imaginative romances and the finest poems are the work of women.
A young Japanese girl is always an attractive picture in her native dress. Some of the women are extremely beautiful. They have small, well-shaped bodies, and in height they are usually about five feet, and often less. The black hair is long and copious, the skin of the features warmly tinted, the mouth small, and the teeth white and regular. The lips are painted red. Womanhood is attained at an early age, and sometimes girls marry at fourteen. Boys often become husbands at fifteen. The approved marriageable age in both sexes is about sixteen.
JAPANESE GIRLS IN BAMBOO AVENUE.
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 characteristics of the West. The geisha is ostensibly a dancing girl. She goes to a dancing school at an early age, and is trained as an artist. When proficient she performs in a tea-house. Part of her duty is to wait upon customers, and to make herself attractive and agreeable to them.
English friends have told me that the geishas are in no sense regarded as pariahs, and that they are often sought as wives. But Mr. Douglas Sladen states that the courtesan is usually shunned by young men who seek partners for life. There is, however, far less ignominy attached to this occupation in Japan than in England or America. This may be partly due to the fact that the geisha is highly intelligent, always sober, thrifty, and more self-respecting than the courtesans of Western lands.
The traffic is licensed in Japan, and it thrives in the towns frequented by foreigners. A considerable number of the girls only follow the calling for a few years. They often save money, and eventually marry and settle down to a staid domestic life.
Letourneau says[3] that:—"In Japan the parents willingly hire out their daughters, either to private individuals or to houses of prostitution for a period of several years, and the girls are in no way dishonoured thereby." This writer states that the Japanese Government regulates the costume of the geishas and the length of their sojourn in the houses. Ten years, from fifteen to twenty-five, is the usual period. "Many of them marry very well afterwards," says Letourneau. The Japanese tea-house girl is no doubt a modern survival of the consecrated woman, for paintings and statues of such devotees are to be seen in some of the temples.[4]
Mr. R. T. Farrer, in "The Nineteenth Century," April, 1904, has an instructive article on this social phenomenon of Japan. He states that the geisha is not necessarily a courtesan. She is well-educated and trained in witty conversation. Usually she is of the lower class. Socially, the geisha occupies the position of the Western actress, and the profession offers many prizes to the successful. Frequently she marries into a high-born family.
Divorce is commoner in Japan than in any other country of the globe, including the United States. The process is simple. If the husband and wife are more than twenty-five, they have merely to appear before a registrar, who cancels the union. Married persons under that age can separate by a legal proceeding, and incompatibility is a valid ground. Marriage is a simple transaction. The ceremony is a civil one performed in the presence of witnesses before a registrar. Young couples must first obtain the consent of their parents. Love in Japan does not always precede marriage, but it usually follows after union. "Love," in the purely romantic Western meaning, is not known among the Japanese. Mrs. Fraser was told by Miss Tsuda, a Japanese head-mistress, and a convert to Christianity, that the word "'love' has been hitherto a word unknown among our girls, in the foreign sense."
Miss Tsuda continues: "Duty, submission, kindness—these were the sentiments which a girl was expected to bring to the husband who had been chosen for her—and many happy, harmonious marriages are the result. Now your dear sentimental foreign women say to our girls: 'It is wicked to marry without love; the obedience to parents in such a case is an outrage against nature and Christianity. If you love a man you must sacrifice everything to him.'"[5]
Undoubtedly, male jealousy is strong in Japan, as in China. The almost extinct practice of married women shaving off their eyebrows and discolouring their teeth arose from the jealous instincts of husbands, who feared for the constancy of a too-attractive wife. Foot mutilation in China is also attributable to jealousy and the property-idea in women. Wives must not be gadabouts, and if their feet are cramped and distorted, they are not so well able to wander abroad into temptation.
Celibacy in Japan is so rare as to be almost non-existent. Redundancy in women is provided for by the concubinate. It must be noted that the children of concubines are as legitimate as those of the wife, and no stigma whatever attaches to the mother and the child.
Let us hear the views of cultured contemporary Japanese writers upon the women of their nation. Count Okuma tells us that women were priestesses and warriors in the old days. I have referred to the important status of women in all the communities wherein woman held sacred offices. It is apparent from Japanese histories that women were formerly regarded as thoroughly equipped for ruling the nation and leading armies.
"Although some of the old-time Japanese women were fond of displaying valour, as is evident from the references in the records to feminine warriors, shiko-mé, yet most of them were by nature womanly and of tender heart. All agreed, however, in loving brave men, who deemed it a high honour to win the regard of the nobler daughters of local magnates, and consequently vied with one another in wooing them with poems and songs."[6]
At a later period Kaibara, a great teacher, who lived between 1630 and 1714, taught that ignorance and lack of intellectual exercise was the chief cause of women's defects, and he recommended a full education suited to their powers. He not only enjoined the teaching of household economy, but he directed that women should study mathematics. Up till seven years of age, girls and boys were to be trained together. Girls must be trained in "womanly virtues, womanly address, womanly deportment, and womanly service."
Kaibara does not advocate the usurpation by women of the avocations considered to be in the province of men only. He insists upon "womanliness." But later reformers ventured further on the path of feminine emancipation. Women have been encouraged to practise medicine, and in time other professions will be open to them. Undoubtedly, Japanese women of the educated class are gaining wider scope year by year.
St. Francis Xavier's mission to Japan wrought certain marked changes in the position of women. More girls' schools were established. The reform in women's education progressed. In 1871 the Emperor counselled the upper classes to educate their daughters by travel.
"We still lack an established system of education for women in this country, and they are generally deficient in the power of judging and understanding things. How children grow up depends on how their mothers bring them up, and this is a matter of supreme importance. It is commendable that those who go abroad from now onward should take with them their wives and daughters or their sisters. These would then see for themselves, and would also learn the way to bring up their children."[7]
The Nippon Women's University was opened a few years ago for the teaching of science, literature, the arts, and domestic management. Count Okuma is of the opinion that the higher education of Japanese women is an extremely valuable reform; but he thinks that culture should have for its purpose the training of women as wives and mothers.
He points out the evils of an "undiscriminating Westernization" of Japanese women.
Okakura Kakuzo, another contemporary writer, states that the women of Japan have always secured more freedom than elsewhere in the East. The Mikado traces his descent from the Sun-Goddess. Women have ruled the land as sovereigns. There are more great woman writers than men writers. The influence of Confucian theology was to exclude women from all affairs but those of the home; but industries and trades are now open to women.
"To-day," says this author, "we are convinced that the elevation of women is the elevation of the race. She is the epitome of the past and the reservoir of the future, so that the responsibilities of the new social life which is dawning on the realms of the Sun-Goddess may be safely entrusted to her care. … She now possesses all the rights of her Western sister, though she does not care to insist upon them; for almost all of our women still consider the home, and not society, as their proper sphere."
Okakura Kakuzo continues: "In the harmony of Eastern society the man consecrates himself to the state, the child to the parent, and the wife to the husband."[8]
In "Japan as I saw it," by A. H. Exner, we are informed that there is less seclusion of the working-class than the higher-class women. The working-man's wife toils hard, but she is the companion of her husband. Japanese liberal papers have said: "We will give our women the position due to them. By a 
A GEISHA GIRL.
Professor Jinzo Naruse, who founded the first college for Japanese women, writes:—
"The part women played in old Japan was very remarkable, especially before the arrival of Buddhism and Confucianism. Men and women were almost equal in their social position. There was then no shadow of the barbarous idea that men were everything and women nothing. Women's power even in politics was great, and history tells us that there were nine women who ascended the throne in olden times. Women in general were not inferior to men physically, mentally, or morally. They were noted for their bravery, and distinguished themselves on the field of battle. . . . . . . . The introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism, however, began to create great changes in the position of women. And yet so powerful were women in society when these two religions came to Japan that their rapid spread in our country was due to the earnest endeavours of the women."[10]
- ↑ "The Japs at Home."
- ↑ "Japan," Brinkley.
- ↑ Op. cit.
- ↑ Letourneau. Op. cit.
- ↑ Article in "World's Work and Play," Dec. 1906.
- ↑ "Fifty Years of New Japan," Count Okuma.
- ↑ Count Okuma. Op. cit.
- ↑ "The Awakening of Japan."
- ↑ Okakura Kakuzo.
- ↑ "Japan by the Japanese," Alfred Stead.