Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-08
RIGHTS OF JAPANESE WOMEN.
Movement in Nippon for Freedom
From Age Long Bondage.

Toxic Cor. London Standard.
The history of woman's struggle for free
dom in Japan has been a record of long and
patient if not quite futile endeavor, hindered
and thwarted ceaselessly by the enslaving
hand of man. Though in this respect the
Japanese woman has been less happily Sit
uated than the woman of occidental lands,
she has been decidedly more successful
than her sisters in India and other Asiatic
countries, owing probably to her keener in
tellect and her higher and more susceptive
moral ntuitions.
While the woman of India or China be-
gins her long journey down the twentieth
century still practically slave, the woman
of Japan can be regarded only partially
as such, for though her lot Is not what
western mothers and wives would tolerate,
1t is incomparably more humane and bear
able than it was even decade or SO ago
OF course, 1t continues true that her nap
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
temples or on the hills; but at fifteen or
sixteen she must begin to learn cooking and
how to make and mend her own and her
prospective 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
dream.
From this fateful moment she is taken
, in charge by 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 1t, is at an end, for the
moment of marriage the happiness of the
Japanese woman Is much more problematt-
cal than it is with the western bride; it
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 she become angry, even in mild
way, at her loveleSs, provoking lord, or
undertake to give himself and his over
bearing mother an accurate estimate of
their characters, or otherwise wander from
the paths of rectitude, she must be often
tempted to do, she can be peremptorlly
divorced, while she has no like remedy
against him.
1t is encouraging to note that the leaven
of dissent from this unjust state of things
is fast permeating japanese society. and
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 large meas
ure to the teaching of Christian mission
aries, as Sir Ernest Satow, late British
minister to China, publicly testified recent
ly, as the result of his forty years expe-
rience in 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 as that epithet is commonly
understood She Is simply disconnected
with the frivolous. butterfly existence to
which for centuries her lord has been as
signing her, and she instinctively revolts
against the immoral attitude which he as
sumes toward her and her children. She
has not yet demanded the suffrage, for in
Japan at the present time nothing could be
more impossible than to permit woman
root
of most of her sorrows, an evil that the men
of Japan show a very suspicious hesitation
to remove.
Thus, recently. in the imperial diet, the
grave and dignifed fathers of the nation,
as well the entire male population of
Japan. were astonished by the presentation
of two petitions from the women of Japan,
one praying for political rights and the
other for moral rights.