Apart from the question of the continuation of the family line, the father and, more especially, the mother are naturally anxious to see their son married and fondle their grandchildren before they die. They have, moreover, as a rule, another motive in his marriage; which is, to make over the care of the household and live free from all anxiety. The father, if a samurai in the old days, would retire from his office in favour of his son, for many of the offices in the central and provincial governments were hereditary, unless he forfeited it by his own fault or through the caprice or displeasure of his lord. A merchant or tradesman would also, by making his son the head of his family, transfer to him his business and his name, himself assuming another name; for it was the rule in the old times, and still is to some extent, for a merchant to have a business-name, so to speak, which was handed down from father to son, each being distinguished from the rest by the degree of descent. This retirement is a long-established custom in this country and makes our habit of taking life easy such a contrast to the strenuous, hard-working ways of the western peoples who pride themselves upon dying in harness.
A DOMESTIC QUARREL
AND RECONCILIATION.
In the middle ages it was a common custom with the Emperors to abdicate. Many of them resigned their high office in the prime of manhood. Some retired to a monastery and lived in complete seclusion, while others resigned in name only and, putting upon the Throne a son or a near relative who was amenable to their will, exercised the authority without the responsibilities of sovereignty. This political retirement was imitated by many of their subjects. Among the most powerful leaders, both warriors and statesmen, not a few left their marks upon their times in nominal retirement from active life. There were men, also, who were, really or nominally for some fault or indiscretion committed, compelled to retire and make room for others more pleasing to the authorities. Many retired of their own will completely from the world. In short, retirement might be due in those days to four causes, namely, weariness of the world which led men to seek repose in the solitude of a hermitage or monastery, political reasons which left men better able to work their ambition under cover of retired life, official orders which imposed retirement as a disciplinary measure, and physical infirmities which disabled men from taking an active part in life. Among the military class all these causes were at work; but nowadays only the first and the last may be said to be effective.
In ancient times the officially-recognised minimum age-limit for retirement was seventy years; but later, in the feudal days, the limit was lowered to fifty years. Subsequently, however, such limits were ignored and men retired at what age they pleased. The usual pretext among the people was that they were compelled to retire by reason of physical infirmities; but not unfrequently the real reason was indolence and love of ease, to which they could yield the more readily since they knew that their sons would provide for them, serve them, and treat them with respect and reverence as all dutiful sons should, so that they could pass the rest of their lives free from care and anxiety. The retired father, who nowadays hardly ever withdraws into solitude, is a harmless old gentleman who takes to innocent amusements, such as playing chess or go with his friends or entering into prize contests for Chinese poems or Japanese odes; he is contented so long as he is provided with his menus plaisirs. At worst he sits up late at home or at tea-houses with his cronies. He appears to be calmly awaiting his end with such little pleasures as his means permit; and if he is a sensible old fellow and can afford it, he will, while his wife is with him, live apart from his son and daughter-in-law so as not to give any occasion for family differences.
The mother, too, is harmless generally if she is over sixty; and even when under that age, she can do little mischief if she lives apart with her husband, beyond complaining perhaps to her neighbours that her daughter-in-law or son-in-law, as the case maybe, does not treat her with the consideration that is her due. Of course she thinks like all mothers that no partner however unexceptionable in disposition, ability, or personal appearance, can be good enough for her child; and her complaint is taken for what it is worth by her neighbours unless they really detect any flagrant breach of filial duty. But it is the widow ranging in age from forty to fifty who is the greatest disturber of domestic peace. She is too old to attract, and yet not old enough to realise that fact and abandon hope; and jealous of a younger woman in the house, she rebukes her in a dog-in-the-manger spirit for any demonstration of love when she is with her husband. She is the worst of mothers-in-law; but others run her hard. A widow under forty cannot readily acquiesce in the relegation of household authority to another woman and often wreaks vengeance for thus supplanting her by an ill-natured tongue and the imposition of degrading work; for mistress as she is of the house, the young wife has in all things, as a matter of filial duty, to submit to her mother-in-law’s will.
In the present stage of Japanese society, the lack of sympathy between a man’s wife and mother is aggravated by the difference in their education. The older woman, being separated from the younger by the yawning gulf which divides Old from New Japan, cannot perceive why the ideas in which she was herself 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 era. She is loud in praise of the old, harping upon the ideal state of things that would have prevailed if the world had remained unchanged, and thinks that it has retrograded socially, morally, and even physically in the interval, grumbling that the weather itself has been affected by the innovations of these latter days and refuses to bring storm and sunshine in the good old downright fashion. Such women cannot be reasonably expected to get on with those of the younger generation who have passed the primary school and probably the girls’ high school and acquired a smattering of western knowledge. The instinctive antipathy between the mother-in-law and the son-in-law, which is a stock joke with the European comic press, dwindles into insignificance when compared with the feeling which sometimes arises between the former and her daughter-in-law.
But armed as she is with the unlimited authority with which custom has invested parents, the mother-in-law has not always the best of it in the tussle with her daughter-in-law. She may be good-natured and submit to the other as readily as she has submitted all her life to her husband; or she may be accessible to flattery and be made the other’s tool by judicious coaxing. She is under the thumb of her superior in wit, will, or tact. She may be made to consent to live apart from the young couple if her husband is still living, or to content herself with the use of a single room in their house if she is a widow; and sometimes she becomes little better than an upper servant. A daughter-in-law who can make her a willing slave, exercises as great an influence over her husband and can persuade him to acquiesce in any proposal that she may make with respect to his mother.