Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/272

JAPAN was not used to compel work, nor is there any record that the idea of chaining a serf ever suggested itself to a Japanese householder or official. It would appear, too, that the prospect of an aged person's dying without having tasted the sweets of freedom, revolted ancient legislators. They enacted that, if a State serf attained the age of sixty-six, or became incapacitated by disease, he should be promoted to be an official employé and at seventy-six he was rehabilitated. Even a man who had been degraded for treason, was restored to his old status when he reached the age of eighty. Other causes of manumission were emancipation (which carried with it exemption from taxation during a period of three years from the date of rehabilitation), judgment of a law court, extinction of a master's family, meritorious service, and adoption of the Buddhist priesthood, for a Buddhist priest had no social status, and consequently a serf entering the priesthood ceased to be subject to social discrimination. But despite this disposition to lighten the lot of the serf, stringent measures were adopted to preserve the distinctions of caste. Nothing save the pride of rank prevented intermarriages between the patricians and the commoners (heimin). If, however, either a patrician or a commoner married a serf, the offspring of the union became a serf. Even among the serfs themselves, difference of grade originally constituted a barrier to marriage. These harsh 242