The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-05-19
RIGHTS OF JAPANESE WOMEN.
Movement I'm Nippon for Freedom Fren
Age Long Bondage.

Movement I'm Nippon for Freedom Frem
Age Long Bondage.
The history OF woman'B struggle Tor
freedom in japan has been a record OF
long and patient II not quite futile en-
deavor, hlndered and thwarted cease
lessly by the enslaving hand Of mAn
Though in this respect the Japanese woman
has been less happily situated than the
women Of Occidental lands. she has been
decidedly more successful than her sigterl
in India and other Asiatic countries, owing
probably to her keener intellect and her
higher and more s%usceptive moral intui-
tons.
While the woman Of India or China be-
gins her long journey down the twentieth
century still practically a slave, the woman
Of Japan can he regarded only partially
as such, writes the Toxic correspondent
OF the London Standard; for though her
lot is not what Western mothers and wives
would tolerate. it is incomparably more
humane and bearable than it was sven a
decade or 80 ago. -- 10.
OF course it continues r u hat her hap
piest days are those OF her childhood. when
she can frolic with her brothers, and fly
kites or play games in the courts Of ancient
tOlitDlCo VI oll ZIG lliiIb' u az ~ vi Nv tlAD
must begin to learn cooking and how 70
make and mend her own and her pros
pective husbands clothes. for now she may
at any favorable moment be matched by
her parents with some austere lord. when
her childish castles of fancy tumble and
her freedom usually vanishes as a dream,
From this fateful moment she is taken
in charge by a comparative stranger, whom
she must without question regard as her
possessor and one to whom she is a humble
slave. Her enjoyment Of life, as Western
women understand it, is at an end, for the
moment Of marriage the happiness Of the
Japanese woman Is much more problemati-
cal than it is with the Western bride: 1t
depends altogether on the kind Of man
her lord proves himself to be. He may
chance to prove a lover brave and true,
whose heart would break rather than prove
unfaithful; but should he not, as very COM
monty happens, she has no court Of appeal,
no recourse but patience unto death.
Should sine become angry, even in a mild
way, at her l~oveless, provoking lord, or
undertake to give himself and his over
bearing mother an accurate estimate OF
their characters, or otherwise wander
be often tempted to do, she can be perempto-
rily divorced, while she has no like remedy
against him.
It is encouraging to note that the leaven
dissent from this unjust state Of things
is fast permeating Japanese society, n =
there Is now everywhere evident a remark
able determination on the part Of wives
TO secure the fair treatment enjoyed by the
women OF Western lands. This new in
fuence is undoubtedly due in a large meas
ure to the teaching Of Christian missionaries,
as Sir Ernest Satow, late British Minister
to China, publicly testified recently. a.
the result OF his forty years experience
the Far East.
The modern Japanese woman has OBJ
viously no ambition to domineer over her
husband or in any way to impose upon the
male portion Of the population. She reveals
no desire to emulate the aspirations OF the
new woman y as that epithet is commonly
She is simply disseminated
with the frivolous, butterfly existence
@ which for centuries her lord has been
assigning her, and she instinctively revolts
lgaint the immoral attitude which he
assumes toward her n her children.
She mas not &c: demanded the suffrage,
or in Japan at the present time nothing
be more impossible than to permit
woman to vote; but she has struck at tbs
DOT OF most OF her sorrows, an evil that the
men OF Japan show a very suspicious hesita-
to remove. .
Thus, recently, in the Imperial Diet. ,
he grave and dignified fathers OF the
as we'll as the entire male popula-
ion Of Japan, were astonished by the
PRESENTATION of two petitions from the
women of Japan, one praying for political
lights and the other for moral rights.