Japanese Girls and Women / Revised and Enlarged Edition

by Alice Mabel Bacon

One story current in Tōkyō shows the narrowing effect of such seclusion. A noble who had traveled into Yedo, across one of the large bridges built over the Sumida River, remarked one day to his companions that he was greatly disappointed on seeing that bridge. "From the pictures," he said, "which I have seen, the bridge seemed alive with people, the centre of life and activity, but the artists must exaggerate, for not a soul was on the bridge when I passed by."

The castle of the Shōgun in Yedo, with its moats and fortifications, and its fine house and great kura, was reproduced on a small scale in the castles scattered through the country; and as in Yedo the yashikis of the daimiōs stood next to the inner moat of the castle, that the retainers might be ready to defend their lord at his earliest call, so in the provinces the yashikis of the samurai occupied a similar position about the daimiō's castle.

It is curious to see that, as the Shōgun took away the military and temporal power of the Emperor, making of him only a figure-head without real power, so, to a certain degree, the daimiō gave up, little by little, the personal control of his own province, the power falling into the hands of ambitious samurai, who became the councilors of their lord. The samurai were the learned class and the military class; they were and are the life of Japan; and it is no wonder that the nobles, protected and shielded from the world, and growing up without much education, should have changed in the course of centuries from strong, brave warriors into the delicate, effeminate, luxury-loving nobles of the present day. Upon the loyalty and wisdom of the samurai, often upon some one man of undoubted ability, rested the greatness of the province and the prosperity of the master's house.

The life of the ladies in these daimiōs' houses is still a living memory to many of the older women of Japan; but it is a memory only, and has given place to a different state of things. The Emperor occupies the castle of the Shōgun to-day, and every daimiō's castle throughout the country is in the hands of the imperial government. The old pleasure gardens of the nobles are turned into arsenals, schools, public parks, and other improvements of the new era. But here and there one finds some conservative family of nobles still keeping up in some measure the customs of former times; and daimiōs' houses there are still in Tōkyō, though stripped of power and of retainers, where life goes on in many ways much as it did in the old days. In such a house as this, one finds ladies-in-waiting, of the samurai rank, who serve her ladyship—the daimiō's wife—in all personal service. In the old days, the daughters of the samurai were eager for the training in etiquette, and in all that belongs to nice housekeeping, that might be obtained by a few years of apprenticeship in a daimiō's house, and gladly assumed the most menial positions for the sake of the education and reputation to be gained by such training.

The wife and daughters of a daimiō led the quietest of lives, rarely passing beyond the four great walls that inclose the palace with its grounds. They saw the changes of the seasons in the flowers that bloomed in their lovely gardens, when, followed by numerous attendants, they slowly walked through the bamboo groves or under the bloom-laden boughs of the plum or cherry trees, forming their views of life, its pleasures, its responsibilities, and its meaning, within the narrow limits of the daimiō's yashiki.

Their mornings were passed in the adorning of their own persons, and in the elaborate dressing of their luxuriant hair; the afternoons were spent in the tea ceremony, in writing poetry, or the execution of a sort of silk mosaic that is a favorite variety of fancy work still among the ladies of Japan.

A story is told of one of the Tokugawa princesses that illustrates the amusements of the Shōgun's daughters, and the pains that were taken to gratify their wishes, however unreasonable. The cherry-trees of the castle gardens of Tōkyō are noted for their beauty when in bloom during the month of April. It is said that once a daughter of the Tokugawa house expressed a wish to give a garden party amid the blossoming cherry-trees in the month of December, and nothing would do but that her wishes must be carried out. Her retainers accordingly summoned to their aid skillful artificers, who from pink and white tissue paper produced myriads of cherry blossoms, so natural that they could hardly be distinguished from the real ones. These they fastened upon the trees in just such places as the real flowers would have chosen to occupy, and the happy princess gave her garden party in December under the pink mist of cherry blooms.

The children of a daimiō's wife occupied her attention but little. They were placed in the charge of careful attendants, and the mother, though allowed to see them when she wished, was deprived of the pleasure of constant intercourse with them, and had none of the mother's cares which form so large a part of life to an ordinary Japanese woman.

When we know that the average Japanese girl is brought up strictly by her own mother, and thoroughly drilled in obedience and in all that is proper as regards etiquette and the duties of woman, we can imagine the narrowness of the education of the daimiō's poor little daughter, surrounded, from early childhood, with numerous attendants of the strictest sort, to teach her all that is proper according to the highest and severest standards. Sometimes, by the whim or the indulgence of parents, or through exceptional circumstances in her surroundings, a samurai's daughter became more independent, more self-reliant, or better educated, than others of her rank; but such opportunities never came to the more carefully reared noble's daughter.

From her earliest childhood, she was addressed in the politest and most formal way, so that she could not help acquiring polite manners and speech. She was taught etiquette above all things, so that no rude action or speech would disgrace her rank; and that she should give due reverence to her superiors, courtesy to equals, and polite condescension to inferiors. She was taught especially to show kindness to the families under the rule of her father, and was early told of the noble's duty to protect and love his retainers, as a father loves and protects his children. From childhood, presents were made in her name to those around her, often without her previous knowledge or permission, and from them she would receive profuse thanks,—lessons in the delights of beneficence which could not fail to make their impression on the child princess. Even to inferiors she used the polite language,[34] and never the rude, brusque speech of men, or the careless phrases and expressions of the lower classes.