Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/241

Rh marriage was effected. And if the persons who effect this kind of divorce fail to determine who is to have the custody of the children, they belong to the father; but "in cases where the father leaves the family owing to divorce, the custody of the children belongs to the mother," evidently because she remains in the family. In other words, children are chattels of the family.

The grounds on which judicial divorce is granted include bigamy, adultery on the part of the wife, the husband's receiving a criminal sentence for an offence against morality, cruel treatment or grave insult such as to render living together unbearable, desertion with evil intent, cruel treatment or gross insult of or by lineal ascendants.

The new Civil Code indirectly sanctions concubinage by stipulating (in Art. 827) that "an illegitimate child may be recognized by the father or mother" by giving notice to a registrar. Such a child is called shoshi, but is not legitimized. It is, however, stipulated (in Art. 728) that between a wife and a shoshi "the same relationship as that between parent and child is established." That seems clearly enough to mean that a wife must accept a concubine's child as if it were her own, in case the father "recognizes" it. This would appear to be little, if any, advance over the old régime, where "the wife of the father," as she was technically called, frequently had to accept as her own child that of a concubine.