Any arrangements may be made for the custody of the children after divorce; but in the absence of special agreement, the principle followed is that the children belong to the family in which they were born. Thus, they belong as a rule to the father; but if he has been adopted as husband, they fall to the care of their mother.
Judicial divorces are, as already stated, seldom applied for. There have been a few cases of divorce for adultery, which, where proved, always ended in the imprisonment of the unfaithful wife and her paramour. These criminal suits have not so far been accompanied by civil actions; the Japanese husband is satisfied with the incarceration of the destroyer of his domestic happiness. Seeing that his wife is party to the ruin of his home, he would not dream of being indemnified for it, as a woman who is capable of infidelity is in his opinion bound sooner or later to dishonour her husband. To the Japanese there is something repugnantly mercenary in claiming damages for his wife’s forfeiture of chastity in the same way as he might for the loss of any piece of property.
Pecuniary considerations enter as little into actions for breach of promise of marriage. Since the new Civil Code came into operation, there has been only one such case brought into court. It was decided in favour of the plaintiff; but the court merely ordered the promise of marriage to be carried out and did not enter into consideration of any pecuniary compensation for the breach. But then there is really nothing to assess when an engagement is broken off in Japan. All that is necessary when the other party consents to its being broken off, is to return in kind or value the betrothal presents. As the engaged couple, if they ever do write to each other, only send formal letters with the compliments of the season or inquiries after each other’s health, these epistles afford no means of measuring the suffering entailed by the breach of faith. Neither do the lovers go out together; and on the very rare occasions when they walk with each other, they are accompanied, not by a conniving gooseberry, but by an Argus-eyed chaperon who frowns upon the least departure from strict propriety. So that their behaviour in each other’s company gives as little guidance as the letters in the assessment of the damage done to the jilted lover’s heart.
In a similar manner mercenary marriages are not so numerous with us as in other countries. Many men marry, it is true, with ulterior motives daughters of wealthy or influential families; and these latter naturally do their best to promote the interests of their sons-in-law. By judicious marriages young men have risen to high and influential positions in official and commercial circles. But marriages that are crudely, unblushingly mercenary are rare for the simple reason that it is not the common custom to give away daughters with large dowries. The wives bring with them plenty of dresses and personal articles, but seldom money, though their fathers may give them something to start with when they marry. There is still a strong prejudice against dowries; and a man who marries a woman with a dot is often considered very mercenary and, still worse, even suspected of having taken the money as an offset against some personal defect in his wife. There is of course the possibility that the wealthy parent would help his daughter in difficulties and when the worst came to the worst, keep her and her family from starvation. But the most effectual way in which a man may make money by marriage is to get adopted as a husband by a wealthy family; it is indeed the only means a poor man has of acquiring wealth without any exertion on his part; the difficulty is to find a well-to-do family willing to adopt him. If he has nothing to expect from his father, he need not hope for a legacy from an uncle, aunt, or any other relative, as an estate is seldom allowed to go out of the family. A bachelor or a childless person adopts some one to succeed to his name and property.
In the same way a settlement is seldom made on the wife. A widow is, as long as she remains in the family, maintained by her son or daughter’s husband. Until recently she had, if she wished to remarry, first to return to her own family and become a spinster again, so to speak, by re-assuming her maiden name; but the new Civil Code allows her to marry direct from the family in which she has become a widow; this is merely to save her the trouble of needlessly removing to her old home. She must, however, secure the consent of the heads of her own family and her late husband’s to her second marriage. As the widow brings from her husband’s home only her clothes and other personal property, she is not courted by fortune-hunters. A girl does not in Japan give her hand to a dotard with the object of enjoying his property after his death with a husband more suited to her age.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHILDREN.
Child-life—Love of children—Desire for them—Child-birth—After-birth—Early days—The baby’s food—The “first-eating”—Superstitions connected with infancy—Carrying of babies—Teething—Visits to the local shrine—Toddling—Weaning—The kindergarten and primary school—The girls’ high school—The middle school—The popularity of middle schools—Hitting—Exercises and diversions—Collections.
JAPAN has been called the Paradise of Babies; and certain it is that childhood passes very happily in this country. In every family its children have a free run of the whole house; there is neither a nursery to which they can be confined nor any room which is exempt from their invasion. They are the real masters of the house; and father, mother, elder brother and sister are their willing slaves. They will romp unchidden into the parlour and interrupt the visitor whom the father or mother is there receiving; and the visitor too, be he friend, relative, or comparative stranger, never takes such intrusion amiss, but on the contrary, pays court to them as he knows well that through them the softest spot in the father’s heart is reached and the mother’s goodwill won. The parent, following the common custom of the country, deprecates any words uttered in their praise, for it is considered as great a breach of good manners to extol one’s children, or for that matter, husband, wife, or any other member of the family, as to belaud oneself. The mother, burning as she may be to expatiate upon her children’s marvellous sharpness or sagacity, will to the last speak disparagingly of them, but in a tone which clearly expects from the hearer an emphatic protest against her depreciation of her own offspring. Indeed, to take her at her word would be to incur her undying displeasure.