The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-07-27
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their not going into buttonholes, for
the button may be three or even more
inches long, and for the most part takes
the form of a human figure in some
| grotesque attitude. The best ones are
| made of ivory, but those carved by
| famous masters out of odd shaped
roots are even more priced, because the
| japanese values expensive unostenta-
| tiousness as much as the British mid
die class householder of the era of solid
dining room furniture did. The net
suke is a familiar object in England
J now, where it is used instead of the
china-parr for the blind cords of art
blinds. It is also used for sprinkling
the mantlepieces to ensure the servant
busting them.
Pretty Lower Class Women.
have said that the lower Japan
csc woman is in class the more con-
| sideration she receives; it is true, also,
| that the lower her class, the prettier
she is. A Japanese grisette-the nous
NEE of literature-is capable of being
as pretty as any grisette ever painted
by GreuZe. The type Greuze painted
for his Girl at the Fountain is thor
oughly mousmee. Her eyes are mostly
black, but unless she has a spark of
good breeding they need not be almond
shaped, and differ little from those of
Europeans. The lower class Japanese
have a racial element in them which
has never been satisfactorily account
ed for.
1t is the custom to say that the Jap
anese are half Malay, half Mon
golian people, the Monaghan type be-.
ing more prominent in the aristocracy
and the Malay in the people. But these
two races do not in my mind account
for this type. One could readily be-
lieve that the soft beauty of the Jap
anese peasant girl is accounted for by
an infusion of the blood of the gentle
brown races of the South Pacific
islands, with whose natures she has so
much in common. It is lucky for her
that she is pretty and gentle and good,
for Japan is mans country, where
women are regarded as mere conven-
fences.
The Japanese talk Of the three ODE
| diences for a woman. She has to obey
her father till she is married, her hus-
band while she is married, and her sons
if she is left widow with children.
And even that is not the worst of it,
for her wifely obedience extends to her
husbands parents and any elder broth
er he may have and any wives they
may have. A Japanese woman is often
married because her mother-in-law
wants some one to wait on her; in fact,
she has no particular prospects in life
until she becomes a mother in law
herself-of sons wife, that is to say
not of a daughters husband. Japanese
| mothers-in-law are proverbially harsh
to their daughters-in-law; in fact, the
only capacity in which a woman has
decent chance of misbehaving herself
in Japan is that of mother-in-law.
Divorces in Japan.
And the odd thing is that, except in
| the low-down circles, where a woman's
labor can be turned to some other ac-
count than that of waiting upon her
mother-in- she seldom takes adj
vantage of the desirable terms of the
Japanese divorce court. Putting aside
the ordinary unsavory reasons for di-
vorce which are in use in any civilized
| country, and the added Oriental prima
facie reason of leprosy, the seven rea-
sons for divorce include woman's dis
obedience to her father n-law or
her-in-law; her barrenness, unless
| her husband has children by a mis-
tress; jealousy; stealing, or disturbing
the harmony of kinsmen and bringing
| trouble on her household by talking
over-much and pratting disrespectful-
ly. The reasons for divorce are quoted
for women, because it has not occurred
| to the Japanese mind that any woman
Should Voluntarily wish to be deprived
of even Japanese marriage.
| But the low-class woman sometimes
loses her sense of shame about this
| matter II she has a particularly exas-
| perating mother-in-law, or would like
to earn better husband with her
earnings. Marriage is a. simple affair
In Japan. 1t consists chiefly in taking
so many cups of tea-or is it sake 2-in
particular way. 1t is not usual for
the woman to receive a dowry from
1 her father when she coca to her hus-