Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/512

500 It will be gathered from this table that the standard Japanese pound weight of 160 momme is approximately equivalent to 1⅓ lb. avoirdupois. Some commodities, however—such foreign food stuffs as bread and meat have a somewhat smaller pound of 120 momme, which is almost exactly the English pound, while tobacco is retailed in still smaller pounds of but 100 momme (hyaku me).

 Woman (Status of). Japanese women are most womanly,—kind, gentle, faithful, pretty. But the way in which they are treated by the men has hitherto been such as might cause a pang to any generous European heart. No wonder that some of them are at last endeavouring to emancipate themselves. A woman's lot is summed up in what are termed "the three obediences,"—obedience, while yet unmarried, to a father; obedience, when married, to a husband and that husband's parents; obedience, when widowed, to a son. At the present moment, the greatest lady in the land may have to be her husband's drudge, to fetch and carry for him, to bow down humbly in the hall when my lord sallies forth on his walks abroad, to wait upon him at meals, to be divorced almost at his good pleasure. "Society," in our sense of the word, scarcely exists. Men do not call on ladies, can hardly even ask after them. Two grotesquely different influences are now at work to undermine this state of slavery—one, European theories concerning the relation of the sexes, the other, European clothes! The same fellow who struts into a room before his wife when she is dressed à la japonaise, will let her go in first when she is dressed à l’européenne. Probably such acts of courtesy do not extend to the home, where there is no one by to see; for most Japanese men, even in this very year of grace 1904, make no secret of their disdain for the female sex. Still it is a first step that even on some occasions, consideration for women should at least be simulated.

Have we explained ourselves? We would not have it thought that Japanese women are actually ill-used. There is probably