Japanese Girls and Women / Revised and Enlarged Edition

by Alice Mabel Bacon

Let us examine the two remedies suggested by the reformers, and see what effect has been produced by each so far, and what may be expected of them in the future. Taking education first, what are the effects produced so far by educating women to a point above the old Japanese standard? In many happy homes to-day, we find husbands educated abroad, and knowing something of the home life of foreign lands, who have sought out wives of broad intellectual culture, and who make them friends and confidants, not simply housekeepers and head-servants. In such homes the wife has freedom, not such as is enjoyed by American women, perhaps, but equal to that of most European women. In such homes love and equality rule, and the power of the mother-in-law grows weak. To her is paid due respect, but she seldom has the despotic control which often makes the beginning of married life hard to the Japanese wife. These homes are sending out healthy influences that are daily having their effect, and raising the position of women in Japan.

But for the young girl whose mind has been broadened by the new education, and who marries, as the majority of Japanese girls must, not in accordance with her own wishes, but in obedience to the will of her parents, a hard life is in store. A woman's education, under the old régime, was one that fitted her well for the position that she was to occupy. The higher courses of study only serve to make her kick against the pricks, and render herself miserable where she might before have been happy. With mind and character developed by education, she may be obliged to enter the home of her husband's family, to be perhaps one among many members under the same roof. In the training of her own children, in the care of her own health and theirs, her wishes and judgment must often yield to the prejudices of those above her, under whose authority she is, and it may not be until many years have passed that she will be in a position to influence in any measure the lives of those nearest and dearest to her. Then, too, her life must be passed entirely within the home, with no opportunities to meet or to mingle with the great world of which she has read and studied. Surely her lot is harder than that of the woman of the olden time, whose plain duty always lay in the path of implicit obedience to her superiors, and who never for one moment considered obedience to the dictates of her own reason and conscience as an obligation higher than deference to the wishes of husband and parents. Education, without further amelioration of their lot as wives and mothers, can but result in making the women discontented and unhappy,—in many cases injuring their health by worry over the constant petty disappointments and baffled desires of their lives.

This to superficial observers would seem a step backward rather than forward, and it is to this cause that the present reaction against female education may be traced. The first generation or two of educated women must endure much for the sake of those who come after, and by many this vicarious suffering is misunderstood, and distaste on the part of educated girls for marriage, as it now exists in Japan, is regarded as one of the sure signs that education is a failure. Without some change in the position of wife and mother, this feeling will grow into absolute repugnance, if women continue to be educated after the Western fashion.

The second remedy that is suggested is Christianity, a remedy which is even now at work. Wherever one finds in Japan a Christian home, there one finds the wife and mother occupying the position that she occupies all over Christendom. The Christian man, in choosing his wife, feels that it is not an ordinary contract, which may be dissolved at any time at the will of the contracting parties, but that it is a union for life. Consequently, in making his choice he is more careful, takes more time, and thinks more of the personal qualities of the woman he is about to marry. Thus the chances are better at the beginning for the establishment of a happy home, and such homes form centres of influence throughout the length and breadth of the land to-day. Christianity in the future will do much to mould public sentiment in the right way, and can be trusted as a force that is sure to grow in time to be a mighty power in the councils of the nation.

One more remedy might be suggested, as a preliminary to proper legislation, or a necessary accompaniment of it, and that is, the opening of new avenues of employment for women, and especially for women of the cultivated classes. To-day marriage, no matter how distasteful, is the only opening for a woman; for she can do nothing for her own support, and cannot require her father to support her after she has reached a marriageable age. As new ways of self-support present themselves, and a woman may look forward to making a single life tolerable by her own labor, the intelligent girls of the middle class will no longer accept marriage as inevitable, but will only marry when the suitor can offer a good home, kindness, affection, and security in the tenure of these blessings. So far, there is little employment for women, except as teachers; but even this change in the condition of things is forming a class, as yet small, but increasing yearly, of women who enjoy a life of independence, though accompanied by much hard work, more than the present life of a Japanese married woman. In this class we find some of the most intelligent and respected of the women of new Japan; and the growth of this class is one of the surest signs that the present state of the laws and customs concerning marriage and divorce is so unsatisfactory to the women that it must eventually be remedied, if the educated and intelligent of the men care to take for their wives, and for the mothers of their children, any but the less educated and less intelligent of the women of their own nation.

Footnotes:

[11] The Japanese standard of female beauty differs in many respects from our own, so that it is almost impossible for a foreigner visiting Japan to comprehend the judgments of the Japanese in regard to the beauty of their own women, and even more impossible for the untraveled Japanese to discover the reasons for a foreigner's judgments upon either Japanese or foreign beauties. To the Japanese, the ideal female face must be long and narrow; the forehead high and narrow in the middle, but widening and lowering at the sides, conforming to the outline of the beloved Fuji, the mountain that Japanese art loves to picture. The hair should be straight and glossy black, and absolutely smooth. Japanese ladies who have the misfortune to have any wave or ripple in their hair, as many of them do, are at as much pains to straighten it in the dressing as American ladies are to simulate a natural curl, when Nature has denied them that charm. The eyes should be long and narrow, slanting upward at the outer corners; and the eyebrows should be delicate lines, high above the eye itself. The distinctly aquiline nose should be low at the bridge, the curve outward beginning much lower down than upon the Caucasian face; and the eye-socket should not be outlined at all, either by the brow, the cheek, or by the nose. It is this flatness of the face about the eyes that gives the mildness of expression to all young people of Mongolian type that is so noticeable a trait always in their physiognomy. The mouth of an aristocratic Japanese lady must be small, and the lips full and red; the neck, a conspicuous feature always when the Japanese dress is worn, should be long and slender, and gracefully curved. The complexion should be light,—a clear ivory-white, with little color in the cheeks. The blooming country girl style of beauty is not admired, and everything, even to color in the cheeks, must be sacrificed to gain the delicacy that is the sine qua non of the Japanese beauty. The figure should be slender, the waist long, but not especially small, and the hips narrow, to secure the best effect with the Japanese dress. The head and shoulders should be carried slightly forward, and the body should also be bent forward slightly at the waist, to secure the most womanly and aristocratic carriage. In walking, the step should be short and quick, with the toes turned in, and the foot lifted so slightly that either clog or sandal will scuff with every step. This is necessary for modesty, with the narrow skirt of the Japanese dress.

Contrast with this type the fair, curling hair, the round blue eyes, the rosy cheeks, the erect, slim-waisted, large-hipped figures of many foreign beauties,—the rapid, long, clean-stepping walk, and the air of almost masculine strength and independence, which belongs especially to English and American women,—and one can see how the Japanese find little that they recognize as beauty among them. Blue eyes, set into deep sockets, and with the bridge of the nose rising as a barrier between them, impart a fierce grotesqueness to the face, that the untraveled Japanese seldom admire. The very babies will scream with horror at first sight of a blue-eyed, light-haired foreigner, and it is only after considerable familiarity with such persons that they can be induced to show anything but the wildest fright in their presence. Foreigners who have lived a great deal among the Japanese find their standards unconsciously changing, and see, to their own surprise, that their countrywomen look ungainly, fierce, aggressive, and awkward among the small, mild, shrinking, and graceful Japanese ladies.