In the olden time each Japanese girl was supposed to know the precepts contained in a book called “Greater Learning for Women,” written by a famous scholar several hundred years ago. For nearly two hundred years it was one of the indispensable articles that a bride took with her to her new home, but the present modern Japanese maiden knows very little of the “Greater Learning.” I am afraid, indeed, that she is more thoroughly conversant with a parody of these famous precepts, which has been written by a young man of modern Japan. This is so radical that it is forbidden in the libraries of the mission schools in the fear that the Japanese girl will imbibe too early the tendencies fatal to the happiness of the Eastern woman, as she takes her first step from her secluded doorway into the path that leads to the higher learning of the Western world.
Japanese women are womanly, kindly, gentle, and pretty, and perhaps they owe this gentleness and courtesy to the precepts taught by their old sages.
According to Shingoro Takaishi, in his “Wisdom and Women of Japan,” the famous moralist left the following instructions to help women in their perilous journey through life—
“Seeing that it is a girl’s destiny, on reaching womanhood, to go to a new home, and live in submission to her father-in-law, it is even more incumbent upon her than it is on a boy to receive with all reverence her parents’ instructions. Should her parents, through their tenderness, allow her to grow up self-willed, she will infallibly show herself capricious in her husband’s house, and thus alienate his affection; while, if her father-in-law be a man of correct principles, the girl will find the yoke of these principles intolerable. She will hate and decry her father-in-law, and the end of these domestic dissensions will be her dismissal from her husband’s house and the covering of herself with ignominy. Her parents, forgetting the faulty education they gave her, may, indeed, lay all the blame on the father-in-law. But they will be in error; for the whole disaster should rightly be attributed to the faulty education the girl received from her parents.
“More precious in a woman is a virtuous heart than a face of beauty. The vicious woman’s heart is ever excited; she glares wildly around her, she vents her anger on others, her words are harsh and her accent vulgar. When she speaks it is to set herself above others, to upbraid others, to envy others, to be puffed up with individual pride, to jeer at others, to outdo others—all things at variance with the way in which a woman should walk. The only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedience, chastity, mercy, and quietness.
“A woman has no particular lord. She must look to her husband as her lord, and must serve him with all worship and reverence, not despising or thinking lightly of him. The great lifelong duty of a woman is obedience.
“A woman shall be divorced for disobedience to her father-in-law or mother-in-law. A woman shall be divorced if she fail to bear children, the reason for this rule being that women are sought in marriage for the purpose of giving men posterity. A barren woman should, however, be retained if her heart be virtuous and her conduct correct and free from jealousy, in which case a child of the same blood must be adopted; neither is there any just cause for a man to divorce a barren wife if he have children by a concubine. Lewdness is a reason for divorce. Jealousy is a reason for divorce. Leprosy or any like foul disease is a reason for divorce. A woman shall be divorced who, by talking overmuch and prattling disrespectfully, disturbs the harmony of kinsmen and brings trouble on her household. A woman shall be divorced who is addicted to stealing.
“All the ‘Seven Reasons for Divorce’ were taught by the sage. A woman once married and then divorced has wandered from the ‘way,’ and is covered with great shame, even if she should enter into a second union with a man of wealth and position.
“It is the chief duty of a girl living in the parental house to practise filial piety towards her father and mother. But after marriage her duty is to honour her father-in-law and mother-in-law, to honour them beyond her father and mother, to love and reverence them with all ardour, and to tend them with practise of every filial piety. While thou honourest thine own parents, think not lightly of thy father-in-law. Never should a woman fail, night and morning, to pay her respects to her father-in-law and mother-in-law. Never should she be remiss in performing any tasks they may require of her. With all reverence must she carry out, and never rebel against, her father-in-law’s commands. On every point must she inquire of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, and abandon herself to their direction. Even if thy father-in-law and mother-in-law be pleased to hate and vilify thee, be not angry with them, and murmur not. If thou carry piety towards them to its utmost limits, and minister to them in all sincerity, it cannot be but that they will end by becoming friendly to thee.”
There is a sword of Damocles always hanging over the head of the Japanese woman—that is, the fear of divorce. Among the higher classes the dread of scandal and gossip serves as a restraint upon the too free use of the power of divorce, but even now one meets many respectable and respected persons who, some time in their life, have gone through such an experience. Obtaining a divorce is not such a complicated affair as it is in America. It is enough that the parties agree to separate and make a declaration, witnessed by two reputable witnesses, at a local magistrate’s office, and the divorce takes place by mutual consent. As in the case of marriage the consent of the parents or guardians of a girl under twenty-five years of age and a man who is under thirty must be obtained, so this consent of parents or guardians is necessary before a divorce may be granted. Then the domicile of the wife is retransferred in the books of the registrar from the domicile of the family in which she was married to that of her original family. If one of the parties concerned refuse to give their consent to the divorce an application is made to the courts. There are several grounds upon which judicial divorce is granted—first, for bigamy; secondly, the wife may be divorced for adultery, but not the husband, unless the crime has been committed with a married woman, when the unfaithful wife and her lover are liable to penal servitude for a term not exceeding two years, if the charge is brought by the outraged husband. The man cannot be punished alone; the woman must share his fate. As in many European countries, marriage is forbidden between the respondent and the co-respondent in a divorce case.