In her excellent work on Japanese Girls and Women Miss Bacon writing of this class says: "There seems no doubt at all that among the peasantry of Japan one finds the women who have the most freedom and independence. Among this class, all through the country, the women, though hard-worked and possessing few comforts, lead lives of intelligent, independent labor, and have in the family positions as respected and honored as those held by women in America. Their lives are fuller and happier than those of the women of the higher classes, for they are themselves breadwinners, contributing an important part of the family revenue, and are obeyed and respected accordingly. The Japanese lady, at her marriage, lays aside her independent existence to become the subordinate and servant of her husband and parents-in-law, and her face, as the years go by, shows how much she has given up, how completely she has sacrificed herself to those about her. The Japanese peasant woman, when she marries, works side by side with her husband, finds life full of interest outside of the simple household work, and, as the years go by, her face shows more individuality, more pleasure in life, less suffering and disappointment than that of her wealthier and less hard-working sister."[1]
[ [1] Pp. 260, 261.
The home of the average tenant farmer is a small, single-storied, thatch-roofed building, having usually two or three small rooms separated by sliding paper screens, and a kitchen with earthen floor. The smoke escapes as it can, passing through the roof or pervading the whole house. No privacy of any kind is possible, nor is any need of it felt. The house is free of furniture, save for one or two chests of drawers. A closet or two affords a place for the futon (bedding) by day, and for the little extra clothing. Of course no books are found in such homes. The main room often has a board floor, with a fire box in the center, over which is a kettle suspended from the roof. Here the family eat, and friends gather to chat after the day's work is over. The food is of the poorest grade in the empire, though usually adequate in amount. Of course there are well-to-do farmers, not a few, who own their farms, employ fellow farmers, and cultivate large areas. Their homes are larger and better, but still in arrangement and structure they are practically the same. Their sons attend the middle schools and books and the daily paper are familiar objects.
The economic condition of the farming class may be judged from the fact that the land cultivated by each family averages three and one-third acres, which must provide food and clothing for five or six persons. The great majority of farmers live in little, compact villages, having populations ranging from 500 to 5,000. There are 12,706 villages under 5,000, and only 1,311 villages, towns, and cities over 5,000. These facts suggest the nature of the social conditions of the farming population. They live under the severest limitations of every kind, physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Yet during the recent era of Meiji (enlightened rule), from 1868 to 1912, the economic condition of the agricultural classes made great improvement. My gardener, a man of sixty, who remembers Japan before the reformation, 1868, says that farmers now live in luxury. The taxes they pay to-day are slight compared with what was required of them in former times, when, in his section, farmers had to give to their Daimio about five twelfth of the rice crop, while taxes to-day require but one fifth or less. He adds that families owning three and one third acres of land are well-to-do, seeing many families have to make their entire living from only one acre!
Of course, farmers, without education or social demands, require little beyond the simplest food and shelter. The clothing needed by their families is the cheapest cotton, with cotton wadding added in the winter for warmth. The heat of the summer renders much clothing a burden. A farmer is adequately dressed for the field or his own home if he has on his loin-cloth. His wife or grown-up daughter, when in the house with only the immediate members of the family or most intimate acquaintances present, is satisfied with the koshimaki—a strip of cloth some two feet wide tied around the waist and covering the lower part of the body. But on the street both men and women conform to the national customs and wear the kimono.
The Japanese household and bathing customs have served to prevent the development of that particular type of modesty characteristic of Western lands. It is difficult for Occidentals to understand this feature of Japanese civilization, but such an understanding is essential if one would do justice to the moral life of this people. We may not apply to them Occidental standards in matters of modesty or dress. They have standards of their own, to understand and appreciate which requires no little study.
At this point, I venture a second quotation from Miss Bacon, for she has studied carefully this subject, which all foreigners seeking to estimate the nature of Japanese civilization and moral character should not fail to master. "As one travels," she writes, "through rural Japan in summer, and sees the half-naked men, women, and children that pour out from every village on one's route, surrounding the kuruma (wheeled vehicle) at every stopping place, one sometimes wonders whether there is in the country any real civilization, whether these half-naked people are not more savage than civilized. But when one finds everywhere good hotels, scrupulous cleanliness in all the appointments of toilet and table, polite and careful servants, honest and willing performance of labor bargained for, together with the gentlest and pleasantest of manners, one is forced to reconsider the judgment formed only upon one peculiarity of the national life, and to conclude that there is certainly a high type of civilization in Japan, though differing in many particulars from our own. A careful study of Japanese ideas of decency, and frequent conversation with refined and intelligent Japanese ladies upon this subject, has led me to the following conclusion. According to the Japanese standard, any exposure of the person that is merely incidental to health, cleanliness, or convenience in doing necessary work is perfectly modest and allowable; but an exposure, no matter how slight, that is simply for show, is in the highest degree indelicate. In illustration of the first part of this conclusion, I would refer to the open bath-houses, the naked laborers, the exposure of the lower limbs in wet weather by the turning up of the kimono, the entirely nude condition of the country children in summer, and the very slight clothing that some adults regard as necessary about the house or in the country during the hot season. In illustration of the last point, I would mention the horror with which many Japanese ladies regard that style of foreign dress which, while covering the figure completely, reveals every detail of the form above the waist, and, as we say, shows off to advantage a pretty figure. To the Japanese mind, it is immodest to want to show off a pretty figure. As for the ballroom costumes, where neck and arms are frequently exposed to the gaze of multitudes, the Japanese woman who would with entire composure take her bath in the presence of others, would be in an agony of shame at the thought of appearing in public in a costume so indecent as that worn by many respectable American and European women."[2]
[2] ] Japanese Girls and Women, 257-260.
This completes our study of the homes and characteristics of five eighths of Japan. Here the brawn of the nation is reared. Hence come the sturdy, docile, patient, and courageous soldiers. Here are raised boys and girls by the hundreds of thousands who must at an early age begin to earn a living. This is the hunting-ground of those who seek for builders of railroads, factory hands, domestics, hotel girls, baby-tenders, and occasionally geishas, concubines, and prostitutes. Considering the severe economic conditions under which Japan's agricultural classes live, who can fail to admire their courage and grit, their personal culture, their even temper and cheerful faces, their innate habits of courtesy and good breeding, their mutual patience and forbearance, and their simple artistic tastes and pleasures! Do they not compare well with the peasant classes of any other nation?