Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/42

 theory of conjugal life is that the wife must adapt herself to the husband, not the husband to the wife. Thus to have been divorced frequently, while it does not by any means imply marital infidelity, is held to indicate some want of self-abnegation or moral pliability on the woman's part. It might be supposed that the Omi dames would shirk the obligation of parading their conjugal records in public. But a belief that the goddess whom they worship will punish insincerity prompts them to carry their proper tale of pots without scamping the number. There is, indeed, a tradition that a certain crafty woman once had recourse to the device of hiding in a big pot that represented her last husband several little pots that represented his precessors. But judgment overtook her. She stumbled as she walked in the procession, and the big pot falling from her head displayed its contents to public gaze and to her lasting shame.

An even stranger celebration takes place on the first "day of the hare," in the tenth month, at Wasa, in the province of Kishu. It is called the "laughing festival of Wasa" (Wasa no Warai-matsuri). There is a belief that in the tenth month of every year all the deities repair to the great shrines of Ise in Izumo, and there hold a conclave for the purpose of arranging the nuptial affairs of the nation. The month is called the "god-less moon" (Kami-no-zuki) for all parts of the country except Izumo, whereas, on the con-