Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/183

 novels illustrated with prints and chromoxylographs of remarkable technical and artistic merit, together with many other objects of beauty and luxury, were added to the life of the people. The samurai, who had been demoralised by a sudden access of fictitious wealth at the close of the seventeenth century, owing to currency debasement, felt the pressure of subsequent poverty with increased sharpness, and having recourse to the merchant class for assistance, forfeited the respect he had hitherto received from the latter. Rich farmers and tradesmen began to pay large sums for having their sons adopted into samurai families, an abuse which continued until the Meiji era, and marriages between the daughters of commoners and the sons of patricians became essentially pecuniary arrangements.

On the other hand, there are abundant proofs that throughout the Tokugawa epoch strenuous efforts were made by the Government to check the growth of luxury. Official zeal differed in degree from time to time, but the general tendency was uniform. It is true that no monopoly of such legislation can be claimed for the Tokugawa. The Hōjō and even the Ashikaga issued enactments against extravagance, and the Taikō not only directed vetoes against the embroidered and silk-lined leather breeches and socks fashionable in his time, and against the use of sedan-chairs by any except the aged or the sick, but even sought to introduce some kind of order