THE FIRST MEETING AND WEDDING AT THE PRESENT TIME.
This ability to make an extensive search brings out another advantage of the go-between over the free-choice system. The custom in the West which requires the woman to wait till she receives a proposal entails upon her great hardships. Sometimes, as her circle of acquaintances is generally small, she throws herself after long waiting upon the least uncongenial of the lot and prepares for herself years of disappointment, disillusionment, and heart-burnings. Or, where personal appearance counts for much as it almost always does, a woman with no pretension to beauty must often suffer many a year to elapse before the gallant comes to woo her; perhaps he never comes at all, and the qualities which might have made her a model wife are allowed to run to waste for being concealed under a homely face; and she who might have helped a husband to fame and fortune becomes a soured old maid with bitter hatred of men, or that other and more pathetic figure, the kindly maiden aunt who lavishes on her little nephews and nieces that wealth of love which a wise man would have taken to his heart as an inestimable treasure despite the plain casket in which it is enclosed. From such compulsory spinsterhood a woman is saved in Japan by the go-between; she need not set her cap at any one, for being the deputy for the woman as well as for the man, the go-between can carry proposals from her as if he were making them on his own initiative and so can meet with a rebuff without bringing upon her the shame of a repulse. He can also find for her a suitable husband even if she is far from pretty or gentle, or has defects which may make an ordinary man think twice before rushing into her arms. “For the cracked pot a rotten lid,” as we say in Japan, and for a pot however cracked or imperfect, we can always find a lid to match. So with men and women. A woman with imperfections can thus get without much difficulty a husband with similar defects; but it would be no easy task to catch such a man without the go-between’s assistance.
A DAIMYO’S WEDDING.
There is still another benefit accruing from the go-between system. Upon a squabble taking place between the husband and the wife, they may in the heat of the moment wish to separate; and if left to themselves, they would at once get a divorce as it would not be difficult to bring their own families to take up their cause. But before they can resort to such an extreme step, they must consult the go-between, whose duty it is to make arrangements for their separation in the same way as for their union; and the go-between, bearing in mind the interests of both parties, will do his best to patch up any differences that may have arisen, and if he is a man of tact, usually succeed in restoring peace. In minor matters he is also always appealed to; he hears the complaints of both the husband and the wife, and advises them to yield or compromise. He is really even more useful after the marriage than before: and he is always treated with great respect by the couple he has joined. But if, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, the divorce does take place, his position is an unenviable one, for not unfrequently he would be thought by either family to have purposely deceived it by introducing a person whom he had known from the first to be unsuitable.
A LOWER-CLASS WEDDING.
With us marriage is a civil contract. All that the authorities require is that the heads of the two families should report the marriage and request the girl’s domicile to be transferred from her father’s house to her husband’s. The registrar of the local office complies accordingly, and the couple are legally married. There is no ceremony connected with it. Perhaps this absence of religious sanction may tend to make a marriage less imposing; but as to its being less binding on that account as some have alleged, such a contention is open to question as the divorce court proceedings in the West seldom appear to be stayed by any considerations of the sanctity imposed upon marriage by religion. The exchange of cups in our-weddings is a tacit vow of love and fidelity; and when we have in view the possibility of a divorce thereafter, it is as well that we do not lay ourselves open to the charge of perjury by coming up for a second marriage after having at the first sworn before God that we would “love and cherish each other until death us do part.”
Finally, the new couple do not go on a honeymoon, but proceed at once to enter upon their household duties. The honeymoon is undoubtedly an excellent institution for giving the couple an opportunity of enjoying themselves unreservedly in each other’s company before taking up the serious business of life; but at the same time it not unfrequently happens that they return from it sadly disillusioned and with an outlook far from rosy upon wedded life. The Japanese bride has an advantage over her western sister in that respect, for she has no illusions to be dispelled.