The suburban citizen., 1902-06-07
THE WOMEN OF JAPAN.
Improvement in Their Condition the Eff
feet or western Civilization.

tar Eastern lands is, In general, well
known. In Japan, however, for the
largest part of Its history. woman has
not been quite the social zero or slave
she has been in India, Siam. China, or
Korea. Indeed. in ancient times and
until about 600 years ago, the Japanese
woman stood comparatively high, not
only as wife and mother and compan-
ion in the home, but as scholar, writer,
artist and adviser in business, and even
In affairs Of state 1t Is remarkable
that in the early classics of Japanese
literature the names of women are
among those of the leaders in both
prose and poetry. Until the thirteenth
century their social relations We're in
great degree unconstrained, and they
were graced, along with domestic
knowledge, by many Of the highest
attainments in refined learning-in his
tory, poetry, fiction and religious lore,
and in artistic skill. The change, to be
deplored, that at length befell womans
position, took place chiefly in conse-
quence of the universal civil wars that
devastated the empire from the thir-
teenfh to the seventeenth centuries,
and the dominance during the latter
part of Japan's middle ages of the
social regulations of the Chinese age
OF Confucius.
With the acceptance Of Confucanism
by the upper and ruling classes about
three centuries ago the japanese wom-
an sank almost out of sight as a social
factor everywhere outside the home;
and so she remained until the present
period of the general political, religious,
scientific and social revivlfication of
the people under the influence Of the
civilization of Christendom.
can best illustrate wOman's position
during the $50 years Of the Takugawa
Shogunate, the age just preceding the
recent restoration of the Emperor to
active sovereignty, by few quotations
from the Greater Learning for Wom-
en-" the code most widely accepted as
regulative Of womans place and con-
duet. Seeing that 1t is a girls destiny
on reaching womanhOod," says the
Onna Dalgaku, Ito go to a new home
and live in submission to her father
in-law and mother in-law, it Is even
more incumbent on her than 1t Is ON a
boy to receive with all reverence her
parents instructions" 1.-THE only
qualities that heht Il woman are gentle
obedience, chastity, mercy and quiet
ness"
After her marriage her chief duty is
to honor her fatherin-law and her
mother-ln-law--to honor them even be-
yond her own father and mother
70 love and reverence them with all
ardor and to tend tlem with every
practice of filial plety." "a woman
must look to her husband as her lord"
or as another code expresses 1t, "as
her only heaven TO look up to'-''and
must serve him with all worship and
reverence Her lifelong duty is
obedience"
Much else Is erjoined In this code,
but only in like tone, concerning wom-
ans relations, which are exclusively
those Of daughter wife and mother.
The closing injunction reads: Par
ents. teach the foregoing inaxlms to
your daughters from their tenderest
years. Copy them out from time to
time, that they may read and never
forget them"
But during the past fifty years, un-
nf ha In,
huences Of Western civilization, i'm
portant changes, just now becoming
strongly marked, have begun to affect
tbs degrading social condition. 1t can
not, be said that these changes have
as yet been very widely operative.
Japanese society is still greatly bound
10y the code of Confucius. Outside the
capital and some of the chief CONNER
cial centres women still remain ig-
norant of what you and | consider
their essential worth. They are de-
prIved of the sense of personal freedom
and the self-reliance necessary for
their own best welfare and for the
best development of human society, of
which they are parts, coordinate with
men.
The changes Of which 1 speak began,
occasoned by the pro-foreign move
ment started about thirty years ago.
The statesmen then in command of
the empire, in establishing an enlight-
ened educational system, We're induced
to include in their plans a liberal edu-
cation for girls, and to send to Amer
lea and Europe some promising young
women for preparation in foreign
schools as teachers for their country
women.
AT present there are more than 5000
women employed as instructors in
schools modelled in accordance with
the educational systems of the West;
and in those schools are more than a
million girls as pupils.-Woman's Jour-
nal.
s-.-.4at--Z5
Three Eras OF Women.
1t Is worthy Of observation that the
three greatest periods of English liter
ature and remarkable military con-
quest occurred under three women