Of Prostitution in Japan.
Among the innumerable islands scattered over the southern and eastern oceans there are none more curious in their social aspects than Japan. We find there a kind of native civilization, influenced indeed by former intercourse with Europeans, but now complete within itself, and isolated from all other systems in the world. The mountainous, rocky, and arid country, has been fertilized from the centre to the sea by the persevering industry of a hardy race; they found it poor, and they have made it one of the richest agricultural regions in the globe. This fact serves to illustrate the national character.
The Japanese, upon whose institutions much light has been thrown by the learned and laborious researches of Mr. Thomas Rundall, of the Hakluyt Society, may be described as a punctilious, haughty, vindictive, and licentious people; but there is nothing vulgar in their composition. Truth is held in reverence, hospitality is viewed as sacred, and the bonds of friendship are regarded with extraordinary earnestness. St. Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies, declared “the Japans” to be the delight of his heart. There is, perhaps, more to admire than to love in their character. They are certainly elevated far above many of the nations who surround them, as well in the arts as in the amenities of life. Virtue is a recognised principle, and this indicates a phase of true civilization.
The character of the male is reflected by the female sex. Intelligent and agreeable in their manners, affectionate in their family relations, and faithful to their marriage vows, the women of Japan breathe all the pride of virtue. The man who attempts the honour of a matron sometimes encounters death in his adventure.
In illustration of this characteristic, Mr. Rundall relates an interesting anecdote. A noble, going on a journey, left his wife at home, and another man of rank made infamous proposals to her. Her scorn and indignation only inflamed him to his purpose, which he effected in spite of her denial. When her husband returned she received him with much reserve, and when he asked why, bade him wait until the morrow, when a grand feast was to be given. Among the guests was the noble who had wronged her. They sat down on the terraced roof of the house, and the festival began. After the repast the woman rose, declared the injury she had suffered, and passionately entreated to be slain, as a creature unfit to live. The guests, the husband foremost, besought her to be calm; they strove to impress her with the idea that she had done no wrong, that she was an innocent victim, though the author of the outrage merited no less punishment than death. She thanked them all kindly; she wept on her husband’s shoulder—she kissed him affectionately—then, suddenly escaping from his embraces, rushed precipitately to the edge of the terrace, and cast herself over the parapet. In the confusion that ensued, the author of the mischief, still unsuspected, for the hapless creature had not indicated the offender, made his way down the stairs. When the rest of the party arrived he was found weltering in his blood by the corse of his victim. He had expiated his crime by committing suicide in the national manner, by slashing himself across the abdomen with two slashes in the form of a cross.
The condition of women in Japan varies with different classes. Those of high rank have a separate suite of rooms assigned to them, beyond which they are seldom seen. Among the middle and lower orders they enjoy more liberty, though they are careful to seclude themselves, and are distinguished in general by extraordinary reserve. Men pay them a polite respect not common among semi-barbarians, as the Japanese will continue to be until they are forced to acknowledge the duty of intercourse with the rest of mankind.
The marriage laws of Japan are curious, and vary in different classes. Among the wealthy they are occasions of extravagant parade and long ceremonies, in which the minutest detail is regulated by a peremptory law. A full description of all the marriage ceremonial would fill a small volume. A man can only take one wife; he is united to her in the temple. In addition, however, he may take as many concubines as he chooses, who are not degraded by their position. He may separate from a woman when he pleases; but one who is known to have done so must pay a large sum for the daughter of any other person whom he may desire to have. Marriages are seldom contracted before the age of fifteen. The courtship and betrothal are conducted with much formality; but sufficient opportunity is allowed to the youth of the two sexes to become acquainted each with the other.
The Japanese are not so jealous as many other Asiatics: “Indeed,” says Captain Golovnin, “they are not more so than, considering the frailty of the sex, is reasonable.” Nevertheless, a man may put his wife to death for whispering to a stranger; while adultery is always capitally punished, sometimes by the hand of the injured husband.
In the northern parts, it is said, that in the beginning of the seventeenth century a curious custom prevailed. When a woman was convicted of infidelity, her head was shaved. Her paramour was exposed to an equally disgraceful, but more whimsical penalty. The friends of his victim, whenever they met him, might strip him naked, and deprive him of his property. But the modesty with which youth are inspired from the cradle tends much to protect female virtue. The intercourse of the sexes, it will thus be seen, is regulated by very natural laws; the condition of the sex is somewhat high. Its virtues are prized by the men, and consequently are generally faithfully preserved.
We have said, however, that the men of Japan are licentious; since, therefore, the wives and daughters of the respectable classes are difficult to corrupt, a numerous sisterhood of prostitutes is rendered necessary. Accordingly we find them from the earliest period associating with every rank of men. In one of William Adams’s letters, published under the editorship of Mr. Rundall, we find the king coming on board our countryman’s vessel, bringing with him a number of female comedians. These formed large companies, and travelled from place to place, with a great store of apparel for the several parts they played. They belonged to one man, who set a price upon their intercourse with others, above which he dared not charge under pain of death. It was left to his own discretion to set a value on a girl at first; but afterwards he could not raise, though he might abate his charge. All bargains were made with him, and the woman must go whither she was directed. Men of the highest rank, when travelling through the islands, and resting at houses of entertainment, sent, without shame, for companies of these prostitutes; but the pander was never received by them, however wealthy he might be; after death he was also consigned to infamy. Bridled with a rope of straw, he was dragged in the clothes he died in through the streets into the fields, and there cast upon a dunghill for dogs and fowls to devour.
In Kœmpfer’s account of the city of Nangasaki we find a curious description of the prostitute system. The part of the town inhabited by these women was called “the bawdy-house quarter,” and consisted of two streets, with the handsomest houses in Japan, situated on a rising hill. At these places the poor people of the town sold their handsome daughters while very young, that is, from ten to twenty years of age. Every bawd kept as many as she was able in one house; some had seven, others 30, who were commodiously lodged, taught to dance, sing, play on musical instruments, and write letters. The elder ones taught the younger, who in return waited on them; the most docile and accomplished were most sumptuously treated. The price of these women was regulated by law; and one wretched creature, having passed through all the degrees of degradation, occupied a small room near the door, where she acted as watch all night, and sold herself for a miserable coin. Others were set to this task as a punishment for ill behaviour. The infamy of this vile profession attached justly, not so much to the unhappy women themselves, as to their parents who educated them to it. Many, as they grew up, changed their mode of life, and were received again among the reputable and chaste. Generally well educated and politely bred, they often procured husbands, and passed from a life of daily prostitution to one of unswerving fidelity. The pander and the tanner of leather occupied the same position in society; which shows that the prejudice of class, rather than the abhorrence of an infamous calling, ruled the Japanese.
The historian classes the temples and brothels together, and not without justice. Prostitution was greatly encouraged by the priests. In their public spectacles, representing the adventures of gods and goddesses, young prostitutes, richly attired, were engaged to act. Their performances resembled those of the European ballet—dress, gesture, and action expressing that which in a drama language would represent.
Such was the prostitute system in the great cities; throughout the country a similar system prevailed. The houses of entertainment lining the main highways, with the tea-booths of the villages, were frequented by innumerable girls. These usually spent the morning in painting and dressing themselves, and about noon made their appearance standing before the door of the house, or sitting on benches, whence, with smiling face and coy address, they solicited the passengers. In some places their chattering and laughter were heard above all other sounds; two villages, called Akasaki and Goy, were celebrated on this account, all the houses being brothels, each containing from three to seven prostitutes. The Japanese seldom passed one of these “great storehouses of whores” without holding intercourse with some of these women. Kœmpfer asserts, in contradiction to Caras, who married a native, that there was in his time scarcely one house of entertainment in the islands which was not a brothel. When one inn had too many customers, it borrowed some girls from a neighbour who had some to spare. This profligate system is said, in the Japanese traditions, to have taken its rise at a remote period, during the reign of a certain martial emperor. That monarch, who was perpetually marching his armies to and fro, feared lest his soldiers should become weary of separation from their wives; he therefore licensed public and private brothels, which multiplied to such an extent that Japan came to be known as “the bawdy-house of China.” This was in allusion to a period when prostitution was made in that empire an unlawful calling, and suppressed by severe laws. The people, deprived of the resources they had formerly enjoyed at home, made Japan the place of resort; so that its prostitution system flourished far and wide.
These accounts appear extravagant, and doubtless are so in some degree; all writers, however, coincide in describing the prostitution system of Japan as very extensive and flagitious. The French historian, Charleroix, repeats the statement of Kœmpfer. We have before us extracts from the autograph “diary of occurrants” written by Captain Richard Cock, who was chief of the English factory at Firando, from the year 1613 to 1623. There are many passages corroborative of the representations we have given. Of these some examples follow, which are also interesting as illustrations of Japanese manners.
“A.D. 1616, Sept. 8th (at Edo).—We dyned or rather supped at a merchant’s house called Neyem Dono, where he provided caboques, or women players, who danced and sung; and when we returned home he sent every of them to lie with them that would have them all night.
“October 24 (at Yuenda, between Edo and Firando.)—We went to bed, and paid 3500 gins; and to the servants, 300 gins; and to the children, 200 gins, or about 200l. This extraordinary charge was for that we had extraordinary good cheer, being brought hither by a merchant of Edo, our friend, called Neyemon Edo, and every one a wench sent to him that would have her. I gave one of them an ichebo, but would not have her company.
“1617-18, January 27th (at Firando).—Skiezazon Dono set the masts of his junk this day, and made a feast in Japan fashion. 29th. Skiezazon Dono and his consorts had the feast of Baccus for their junk this day, dancing through the streets with caboques or women players, and entered into an English house in that order, most of their heads being heavier than their heels, that they could not find their way home without leading.
“March 29th (at Firando).—The kyng and the rest of the noblemen came to dyner (at the English house), and, as they said, were entertained to their own content, and had the dancing beares or caboques to fill their wine; Nifon Catanges, with a blind fiddler to sing, ditto.
“July 11th.—There came a company of players, or caboques, with apes and babons, sent from the tono, or king, to play at our house.
“December 6th (at Meaco).—Our host, Meaco’s brother-in-law, invited us to dyner to a place of pleasure without the city, where the dancing girls or caboques were with a great feast; and there came an antick dance of satyrs or wild men of other Japons, until whom I gave 1000 gins (about 10s.), and a bar of plate to the good man of the house, value about 1l. 1s. 6d. So the dancing girls were sent home after us.”
As not altogether inapplicable to the subject, the following passage, which shows how the courtezans of Japan proceed towards such as would cheat them, may be cited: “The caboques took Tane, an interpreter, prisoner, for fifteen tares (about 3l. 15s.) he owed them for lichery, and, not having to pay, set his body for sale, no one having the money for him.”
It would appear that in obtaining possession of a female of this class by clandestine means tragical consequences may ensue; while, if done fairly, considerable expense may be involved. Mr. Wickham, one of the English factors stationed at Mesco, writing on the 15th of April, 1616, to his chief, Captain Cock, gives an account of a soldier of high reputation who ran away with a prostitute, and, fearing she would be reclaimed, was seized with a fit of frenzy, during which he first cut the throat of the girl, and afterwards ripped himself up. The writer then communicates a piece of news:—“Micaonæcamo, the nobellman that gave me my cattan or sword, hath carried away a caboque, and hath payed her master 10,000 tares (2500l.). I would I had the money, and it makes no matter who hath the woman.” Replying to this communication, Captain Cock quaintly observes on one point, “Yf some will be so foolish as to cut their bellies for love (or rather lust) of whores, the worst end of the staff will be their owne;” and on the other point he agrees with his correspondent that he “had rather have the money than the ware.”
Vice of a more brutal kind is systematically practised by many of the Japanese nobility, as well as by the meanest orders; and houses are kept for this purpose similar to those inhabited by prostitutes.
Some parents apprentice out their daughters for a term of years to this abominable profession, and the girls then return to honourable life. The houses they frequent continually resound with music. At Jeddo, a later traveller was informed there was one brothel, or rather temple of prostitution, where 600 women were maintained. Notwithstanding this number, young men were nightly refused admittance, from the over-crowded state of the rooms. Passing through the streets of the brothel quarter Golovnin saw groups of girls standing about the doors; some of them were in the bloom of youth, and so handsome that they appeared fascinating even to the European eye.
Thus the system of professional prostitution flourishes more in Japan than in any other part of insular Asia; yet the women of other classes appear to hold a higher position, and to enjoy more respect from the men. It is remarked, however, by all writers, that the profligacy of the female sex is confined to those who are so by profession; but the male is generally licentious throughout the empire.