With such ideas of uncleanness it is not surprising that Shinto never had a marriage ceremony. No Shinto or other priest is present. We must, therefore, take with some reserve Max Müller's statement that marriage had a religious character from the very beginning of history. It is to be noted, however, that in modern times Susa no wo and his wife Inadahime are thought to preside over connubial happiness, and that something of a religious flavour is contributed to the marriage ceremony by setting out on a stand (shimadai) figures of the old man and old woman of Takasago, spirits of two ancient fir-trees, who are the Darby and Joan of Japanese legend.
Uncleanness includes bestiality, incest of parent and child, of a man with his mother-in-law or stepdaughter,[200] but not of brothers and half-sisters by the father's side. Unions with a sister by the mother's side were unlawful and offensive to the Gods, but they are not specially enumerated in the Ohoharahi schedule.
In 434 Prince Karu, then Heir to the Throne, fell in love with his younger sister by the same mother. At first he dreaded the guilt and was silent. But after a time he yielded to his passion. The next year, in the height of summer, the soup for the Mikado's meal froze and became ice. The diviner said, "There is domestic disorder (incest)." This led to the discovery of Prince Karu's crime, but, as he was successor to the Throne, he was not punished, and his sister only was sent into banishment. After his father's death, however, the ministers and people refused him their allegiance, and he ultimately committed suicide, or, according to another version of the story, went into exile. It is difficult to say whether the religious or the merely moral element predominates in such a case. The portent by which the Prince's crime was followed and the application to the diviners indicate that the crime was thought offensive to the Gods. On the other hand, banishment is a civil form of punishment, and the idea that the offence might bring disaster on the community was probably at the root of the indignation which it caused. Nor is it to be forgotten that there is another non-religious reason for the law against incest. Consanguineous unions are notoriously unfavourable to the propagation of a numerous and healthy progeny, and therefore to the welfare of the community. The 'Chüen,' a Chinese work written several centuries before the Christian era, says: "When the man and woman are of the same surname, the race does not continue." But in China too, the religious sanction of the prohibition of incest is not absent. It is one of those primarily non-religious sexual taboos, having for their object to place a check on masculine tyranny over the weaker sex and the premature, promiscuous, and excessive indulgence of the sexual passion which even savages find to be fatal to the welfare of the individual and the community, and whose transcendent importance and the difficulty of enforcing them by law lead to be reinforced everywhere by religious terrors. The prohibition of unions between brothers and sisters by the mother's side--that is, practically of the full blood--and not of those of the half-blood by the father's side, may be partly due to the circumstance that the former are more commonly brought up together, and a check on immature and consanguineous intercourse was more necessary in their case. This taboo very likely dates from a period when parentage was reckoned chiefly by maternity.
Vulgar licentiousness is not mentioned in the more ancient books as causing ceremonial impurity.
Interference with the virgin priestesses was not only a source of uncleanness, but was in some cases severely punished. The Nihongi states that in a.d. 465
"Katabu and an Uneme were sent to sacrifice to the Deity of Munagata. Katabu and the Uneme, having arrived at the altar-place, were about to perform the rites, when Katabu debauched the Uneme. When the Emperor heard this, he said, 'When we sacrifice to the Gods and invoke from them blessings, should we not be watchful over our conduct?' So he sent Naniha no Hidaka no Kishi to put him to death. But Katabu straightway took to flight and was not to be found. The Emperor again sent Toyoho, Yuge no Muraji, who searched the districts of that province far and wide, and at length caught and slew him at Awi no hara in the district of Mishima."
Here it is primarily the offence against the Gods which is reprobated.
As in the Mosaic law, menstruation and child-birth were regarded as sources of uncleanness.[201] The custom of providing a special hut for parturient women has been already noted.[202] In 811 the wife of a Kannushi was delivered of a child close to the enclosure of the Shrine of the Goddess of Food at Ise. Both husband and wife had to perform an Ohoharahi. After that time no pregnant woman was admitted within the tori-wi of this shrine. In 882 a Prince was sent as Envoy to Ise because a bitch had had puppies within the precincts of the Imperial Palace. Several days' religious abstinence had to be observed in consequence. Until recently births and deaths were prohibited on the sacred island of Itsukushima in the Inland Sea.
Disease, Wounds, and Death caused uncleanness.[203]
The death of a relation, attending a funeral, pronouncing or executing a capital sentence, touching the dead body of a man or beast, even eating food prepared in a house of mourning, all involved various degrees of ritual impurity.