Working Women of Japan

by Sidney Lewis Gulick

Only daughters of the very poor are secured for this outwardly beautiful and attractive, but inwardly repulsive, soul-destroying life. Practically speaking, geisha are the property of the old women who support and educate them through the years of their childhood, and who rent them out by the hour for the entertainment of men at social functions. Such functions would, indeed, be inane without geisha to serve the meals in their dainty ways, to fill the sake[5] cups for guests, to share in conversation by adding the spice, to provoke laughter, themselves laughing loudly and often, and at the proper time, to present their music, their singing, and their dancing. Dressed in faultless style, in richest silks and brilliant colors, geisha are moving pictures which have charmed generations of Japanese men and, in recent decades, many foreigners. Japanese political party dinners and consultations are often held in restaurants, where geisha make the fun and pour the wine. If foreign guests are to be entertained by wealthy individuals, by companies, or even by cities, the inevitable geisha is there, and is presented as a characteristic product of Japan—which she truly is. But while there is about her a certain charm of manner and dress, to one who watches her face, looking for traces of a soul, the story is all too plain—behind the harsh laugh and stoical face it is impossible not to recognize that there is an empty and often a bleeding heart.

[5] ] Sake (pronounced sah'-ke) is the fermented liquor of Japan, made from rice.

The lives of these girls are pitiful in the extreme. Chosen from among the families of the poor on the basis of their prospective good looks and ability to learn, they leave their homes at an early age and are subjected to the severe drill already outlined. They go through their lessons with rigid, mechanical accuracy. In public they appear in gorgeous robes, their faces painted and powdered, artificiality dominating everything about them,—clothing, manners, and smiles. As a rule nothing is done to develop their minds, and of course the cultivation of personal character is not even thought of. They are instructed in flippant conversation and pungent retort, that they may converse interestingly with the men, for whose entertainment they are alone designed. The songs learned, some of the dances performed, and the conversational repertoire acquired are commonly reported to be highly licentious, but these are the gei that best please the men, to whom they are open for private engagements from the time they are eighteen years of age. If, however, a geisha is exceptionally beautiful, her owner does not allow her to enter on such duties, for experience has shown that her beauty is soon lost in this way, and with it her highest earning capacity.

Many geisha undoubtedly develop considerable personal ability. The severe drill undergone could hardly fail to call forth their powers of mind, and intimate association with educated and quasi-cultured men serves further to stimulate their mental faculties. In native ability too they are not lacking, though drawn from the lowest classes of society, for, as will soon be more fully explained, they sometimes possess strains of high lineage. The national custom, which represses the normal intellectual development and social instincts of cultured, respectable women, is removed from this one class, which is favored by many circumstances. They are not subjected to the debauching excesses usual with the ordinary prostitute, nor to humiliating medical inspection. They are not conscious of popular disapproval, but on the contrary are the beauties of the town, their photographs for sale on every street. Indeed one well-informed gentleman told me that probably ten per cent. of the geisha enter the calling by their own choice. No wonder that from time to time the tale is told of some Japanese man of social position falling under the spell of an accomplished geisha, whom he prefers to any of the silent, passive, timid, incompetent girls selected for him, who in all probability have never talked with any man except immediate relatives or tradesmen. The national custom which predetermines the social incompetence of the majority of cultured women compensates for the loss by providing this geisha class. Not until Japanese ladies can hold their own in social life will the vocation of the geisha be ended.

Among the surprises one meets in studying the geisha question is the fact that not a few of the girls have features which indicate distinguished ancestry. My explanation for this fact is the further fact that for ages the standards of moral life in Japan have allowed large freedom of sexual relations. The result is that in the lowest classes, from which geisha are recruited, there run strains of gentle blood. It thus comes to pass that now in the midst of coarse surroundings and in deep poverty there are born of parents manifestly belonging to the lowest class, children of exceptional beauty, fitted, so far as individual appearance indicates, to belong to the highest ranks of society. Whether or not this suggested explanation is correct as a matter of historic fact I am not able to say, but I offer it as the most plausible that has occurred to me.

Parents in this class of society much prefer daughters to sons, for they are likely to become valuable sources of income. At eight or nine, those destined for the "accomplished" calling are put into the care of some experienced geisha and a mutual contract is given for a specific period (five or six years), during which the child is termed a maiko (dancing girl). As a rule the parents receive a small sum at the beginning of this first period. The owner undertakes to support and train the girl, and expects to profit by her earnings. By the time the girl is fifteen or sixteen she has finished her apprenticeship, when, if she has exceptional graces and charms likely to win her a place in the highest social gatherings, she will secure quite a competency (many hundreds of yen, and in some cases even a few thousand) for the keeper and parents. On the expiration of the first contract a new one is made, and so on, until the girl has passed her prime and is no longer sought for entertainments. If in the interval she has not become the concubine of some rich man, she then either returns to her poor home or, what is more usual, becomes a servant in a hotel or tea-house. If her ability is exceptional, she may set up as geisha keeper, train other maiko, employ younger geisha, and so make her living.

The great ambition of a geisha is to "catch" some wealthy man of rank with her charms and become his concubine. My informant estimates that this is what happens to perhaps one half of the geisha. In such cases the man pays down a handsome sum to the owner, who sends part of it to the parents. Thus he buys his concubine, whom he usually keeps in a villa, not his home. I have asked if geisha ever become true, legal wives and am told "only very rarely." But, if they do, are they cordially received by the man's kindred? "Oh, no! that is not possible," is the repeated answer. The effects of her training can never be obliterated, and the new relatives cannot forget the despicable class from which she comes, and the calling by which she has gained her husband. She may become indeed refined and altogether correct in manner, but the taint of her origin as a rule adheres to her. Then too the years of immoral life before she won her husband make it a rare thing for a geisha to have children, and childless wives in Japan are not at a premium, for the prime purpose of marriage is the maintenance of the family line.

Foreigners commonly say that geisha are not prostitutes. It is true they are not licensed, that is to say, professional, prostitutes in the eye of the law, nor are they procurable, as are regular prostitutes, by the average man, for the expense is too great. But the chief of police already referred to, and many Japanese of whom I have inquired, insist that a large proportion of geisha are corrupt—two geisha keepers have estimated the proportion as high as ninety per cent. Geisha who decline engagements leading to immorality are rare indeed, and for that very reason are unpopular.

But better than generalized statements is the story of an actual life. There lives to-day in Hyogo a paralytic whose influence through her words, newspaper articles, and books is widely felt throughout central Japan. She is one of the few girls who, though trained as a geisha, refused to follow the calling. The story of her life is worthy of more than passing mention.

Her father died in her infancy, and shortly after the death of her mother, who had married, her stepfather likewise married again. These stepparents, deciding to have her become a geisha, expended much time and money on her training.