The infant should not walk until it is a year old; but if it is so precocious that it commences to toddle before that time, a small bag of rice is laid upon its back, and it is made to stumble and fall. To walk before its first birthday is a sign that it will die young or else become a resident of a distant land. There are many superstitions connected with the early life of a baby. If he sucks his fingers before he does his thumb, he will be a help to his parents in their old age. If he crawls out of his covers at night, he will rise in the world, but if he snuggles down in the bed and is inclined to crawl towards the foot, it augurs that a downward course is his fate in life. If many of the children of a family have died in infancy, the nervous mother will make for this last gift of the gods a dress composed of thirty-three pieces of cloth collected from thirty-three different families, or she will shave his head until he is seven years old, or give him a girl’s name instead of a boy’s, thus deceiving the gods who covet her treasure. If baby has prickly heat, the first egg plant of the season is hung over the door; while suspending the empty rice-pot, still hot, over the baby’s head for a few moments will make him immune from that affliction of childhood, the measles. It passes its days tied to the back of little brother or sister or nurse until it can walk, then when it is two years old the fifteenth of November is a great day for all the babies. They are taken to the temple and the blessing of the gods is invoked, and the priests purify their bodies by waving over them a sacred wand. This is the occasion for showing new clothes and calling upon all friends, who make presents to the child.
At three or four years children are sent to a kindergarten, and at six years they enter the Primary Schools, where there is a six-years’ compulsory course for both boys and girls. Then it only rests with the parents whether the child receives a higher education, as there are in all towns and villages a Middle School for boys and a High School for girls. The average girl stops her education with the Primary School, or at most with the High School, but there is a University in Tokio where the girl may complete her education and fit herself for a vocation. But if she has been six years at Primary School and four years at High School, she is sixteen years old, and of a marriageable age, although the average girl does not marry until she is eighteen or nineteen.
There are a great many accomplishments which it is necessary for a Japanese girl of good family to know. The knowledge of needlework is so general that it really is not considered an accomplishment. But the art of letter-writing must be known by all accomplished young ladies, and the tea ceremony, which is the strictest and most complicated of all the ceremonies which surround the cultured Japanese, must be thoroughly learned by the daughter of the house. Each movement is regulated by custom, and a mistake in turn of hand or position of the body or the omission of any of the minute details in regard to the bows and salutations in offering, receiving, and returning the cups would show a lack of proper training. The young girl is taught the arrangement of flowers, which is an art by itself in Japan. In the sitting-room of a Japanese home there is a single vase of flowers sitting in the tiny alcove, and they would lose half of their attraction if they were not in some manner symbolical in tone and colour with the picture upon the kakemono which hangs above them. The young girl is often taught to play upon the koto, a kind of zither, although the national musical instrument is the samisen, which is played everywhere—at home, in story-tellers’ halls and theatres, and at every tea-house party. Girls start to learn this instrument at a very early age, because it is necessary to learn it while the fingers are still pliant. It takes time to learn these instruments, as there are no scores and the tunes must be committed to memory. Women teachers come to the home to teach the girls in all these arts, and often the samisen teacher has been a famous geisha, whose support now is teaching the music that once made her welcome at the dinner-parties of gay Japan.
AN OUTDOOR KITCHEN IN JAPAN.
To face p. [290].
After mastering the accomplishments, her business in life is now to marry, and few Japanese maidens think seriously of any other lot in life than that of marrying and becoming the mothers of future Japanese. Japan is more progressive than any other Oriental country, if we except Burmah, in that it allows the girl to exercise a certain amount of choice in the selection of a husband. There are never cases of love matches, but if she positively objects to a man who is proposed to her, she is seldom forced to marry him. It would be thought most immodest if she refused to marry a man until she loved him, as love is supposed to come with marriage and the advent of the children. Only simple toleration is expected before the marriage. The offices of a go-between are asked to assist in the search for a husband or wife, unless the match is made by friends of the interested parties. When the future husband has been selected, the go-between, who must always be a married man, as his wife takes an important part in the transactions, brings about a meeting of the young couple as if by accident. They may be strolling in a garden looking at the hanging wistaria, or meet at a theatre, where the families are introduced, and the two most concerned have a chance to take a good look at each other, and the next day, when the anxious match-maker comes to the house to learn whether his choice has met with favour, they will give their consent, or the match will be broken off, and the go-between will start again the hunt for an eligible alliance. If everything is satisfactory, a lucky day is appointed for the formal proposal, presents are exchanged, and then all look forward to the wedding. A couple of days before the wedding the bride’s trousseau and household goods are sent to her new home, and its elaborateness is only limited by the father’s wealth. Yet there are some things considered indispensable in the outfit of a bride, such as a bureau, a writing-table, a work-box, two of the little trays on which meals are served, together with the full dining outfit, and two or more complete sets of bed furnishings. If she is of a rich family, quite likely the clothing she will bring with her will last her entire life, as styles do not change so radically as to make gowns go so completely out of fashion that they cannot be worn. A wedding is a most expensive proceeding for the father of the bride, as each member of the groom’s family—father, mother, brothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins, even the servants—must all receive a present to mark the joyous occasion. The wedding itself is in the presence of only a few witnesses, and consists in a few formal acts, the most important of which is the drinking “three times three” cups of saki together. To make the marriage conform to the laws of Japan, the bride’s name is removed from her family register and transferred to that of her husband’s family.
After the ceremony there are entertainments in the new home and at the home of the bride’s parents, and then the couple settle down into the married state for two or three months, when the ultra-smart give a series of entertainments to the friends who had no formal announcement of the marriage.
The young wife does not have the happiness of setting up an establishment of her own, but she must go to the home of her husband’s father. The mother-in-law question is a very serious one in Japan, because she is absolutely the head of the household, and the young wife has to submit in all things to her mother-in-law’s will. This is especially serious for the modern Japanese girl, who perhaps has been educated in the Government school, if she is compelled to go to the home of a conservative old-time woman. Naturally, the mother cannot understand why the ideas with which she herself was brought up should not be good enough for the other, and finds fault with, what are in her eyes, outlandish ways introduced by the new regime. These conservative women are always loud in praise of the old state of things, and believe that the world is going to ruin, socially, morally, and physically, because of the innovations brought into their homes by their progressive sons and daughters.
In addition to the parents of her husband, the wife has to win the affection of his brothers, sisters-in-law, and sisters, and her life is often made intolerable by the envies, jealousies, and petty faultfindings of the many women beneath the new roof-tree. The patriarchal life prevails in Japan as in all Eastern countries, and the successful man finds he must support a crowd of less successful relatives, whose claims are not admitted by law, but whose appeals on the score of kinship cannot be ignored, as custom allows those related by blood or marriage to look for help to the least unfortunate among them. The new civil code forces the support of parents, brothers, sisters, and other near relatives upon the head of the household, in addition to that of his wife and children. Thus a man is handicapped in life and has to spend the money he might otherwise use in educating his children in the support of uncles, aunts, and cousins, and perhaps a host of his wife’s relations. From the social point of view this is undoubtedly an excellent system, as it relieves the nation of the support of its poor, but it bears heavily upon the individual, and many a young man’s ambition has been shattered and his road to success blocked by the sordid cares and petty troubles caused by the necessity of maintaining a large household.
The great authority on the conduct of women who marry was written by a Japanese scholar, based on the teaching of the Chinese sages. In it the wife is told she must give unconditional obedience to her husband, who is in every respect her superior and the absolute lord and master of her body and soul; whatever he does is right and she may not even murmur. She occupies a position in her husband’s household practically of an upper servant. She must not frequent public resorts, nor go sight-seeing with the wealth her husband may obtain, and until she is forty years old is not to be seen in company, but to remain at home attending to her household and her children. This sounds very well, but women are women the world over; and although Japanese wives are gentle, docile, and obedient, yet they have a virility and strength of character that compel the respect of their husbands, and in their own domain their word is law.