Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/240

 The ties of consanguinity snapped easily in mediæval Japan when subjected to the strain of ambition or of loyalty. A vassal's duty to his chief outweighed the claims of filial piety, and men were frequently confronted by the dilemma of having to choose between the two during an era when great houses, whose heads and dependents had long been on terms of close friendship and intermarriage, were driven by the exigencies of the time into opposite camps. On the eve of the fight at Sekigahara which finally established the Tokugawa sway over the whole of Japan, Sanada Masayuki and his two sons, Nobuyuki and Yukimasa, had to consider whether they would join the Tokugawa chief, Iyeyasu, or enter the camp of his enemies, the Osaka party. The old man declared that his obligations to the Tokugawa bound him to their side; his sons said that they could not forget what the Taiko had done for their family, and that they would sacrifice their lives in the Osaka cause. The three men parted in the most friendly manner. It is recorded that Masayuki then repaired to the house of his elder son in order to bid a last farewell to his daughter-in-law and his grandchild. But Nobuyuki's wife would not admit him. "The bond of parent and child is broken," she said, "since each has espoused a different cause. I should be untrue to my husband if I did not exclude from his house an ally of his enemy." The old man expressed profound satisfaction with