Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/515

Rh the blame on the father-in-law. But they will be in error; for the whole disaster should rightly he attributed to the faulty education the girl received from her parents.

"More precious in a woman is a virtuous heart than a face of beauty. The vicious woman's heart is ever excited; she glares wildly around her, she vents her anger on others, her words are harsh and her accent vulgar. When she speaks, it is to set herself above others,—to upbraid others, to envy others, to be puffed up with individual pride, to jeer at others, to outdo others, all things at variance with the way in which a woman should walk. The only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedience, chastity, mercy, and quietness.

"From her earliest youth, a girl should observe the line of demarcation separating women from men; and never, even for an instant, should she be allowed to see or hear the slightest impropriety. The customs of antiquity did not allow men and women to sit in the same apartment, to keep their wearing-apparel in the same place, to bathe in the same place or to transmit to each other anything directly from hand to hand. A woman going abroad at night must in all cases carry a lighted lantern; and (not to speak of strangers) she must observe a certain distance in her intercourse even with her husband and with her brothers. In our days, the woman of the lower classes, ignoring all rules of this nature, behave themselves disorderly; they contaminate their reputations, bring down reproach upon the heads of their parents and brothers, and spend their whole lives in an unprofitable manner. Is not this truly lamentable? It is written likewise, in the Lesser Learning, that a woman must form no friendship and no intimacy, except when ordered to do so by her parents or by the middle man. Even at the peril of her life, must she harden her heart like rock or metal, and observe the rules of propriety.

"In China, marriage is called returning for the reason that a woman must consider her husband's home as her own, and that, when she marries, she is therefore returning to her own home. However humble and needy may be her husband's position, she must find no fault with him, but consider the poverty of the household which it has pleased Heaven to give her as the ordering of an unpropitious fate. The sage of old taught that, once married, she must never leave her husband's house. Should she forsake the 'way' and be divorced, shame shall cover her till her latest hour. With regard to this point, there are seven faults, which are termed the Seven Reasons for Divorce:' (i) A woman shall be divorced for disobedience to her father-in-law or mother-in-law, (ii) A woman shall be