The facility of divorce, however, seems to be but rarely taken advantage of:  this is probably owing to the practice of keeping concubines.  It has often been asked, Are the Japanese polygamists?  The answer is, Yes and no.  They marry but one wife; but a man may, according to his station and means, have one or more concubines in addition.  The Emperor has twelve concubines, called Kisaki; and Iyeyasu, alluding forcibly to excess in this respect as teterrima belli causa, laid down that the princes might have eight, high officers five, and ordinary Samurai two handmaids.  “In the olden times,” he writes, “the downfall of castles and the overthrow of kingdoms all proceeded from this alone.  Why is not the indulgence of passions guarded against?”

The difference between the position of the wife and that of the concubine is marked.  The legitimate wife is to the handmaid as a lord is to his vassal.  Concubinage being a legitimate institution, the son of a handmaid is no bastard, nor is he in any way the child of shame; and yet, as a general rule, the son of the bondwoman is not heir with the son of the free, for the son of the wife inherits before the son of a concubine, even where the latter be the elder; and it frequently happens that a noble, having children by his concubines but none by his wife, selects a younger brother of his own, or even adopts the son of some relative, to succeed him in the family honours.  The family line is considered to be thus more purely preserved.  The law of succession is, however, extremely lax.  Excellent personal merits will sometimes secure to the left-handed son the inheritance of his ancestors; and it often occurs that the son of a concubine, who is debarred from succeeding to his own father, is adopted as the heir of a relation or friend of even higher rank.  When the wife of a noble has a daughter but no son, the practice is to adopt a youth of suitable family and age, who marries the girl and inherits as a son.

The principle of adoption is universal among all classes, from the Emperor down to his meanest subject; nor is the family line considered to have been broken because an adopted son has succeeded to the estates.  Indeed, should a noble die without heir male, either begotten or adopted, his lands are forfeited to the State.  It is a matter of care that the person adopted should be himself sprung from a stock of rank suited to that of the family into which he is to be received.

Sixteen and upwards being considered the marriageable age for a man, it is not usual for persons below that age to adopt an heir; yet an infant at the point of death may adopt a person older than himself, that the family line may not become extinct.

An account of the marriage ceremony will be found in the Appendix upon the subject.

In the olden time, in the island of Shikoku[40] there lived one Funakoshi Jiuyemon, a brave Samurai and accomplished man, who was in great favour with the prince, his master.  One day, at a drinking-bout, a quarrel sprung up between him and a brother-officer, which resulted in a duel upon the spot, in which Jiuyemon killed his adversary.  When Jiuyemon awoke to a sense of what he had done, he was struck with remorse, and he thought to disembowel himself; but, receiving a private summons from his lord, he went to the castle, and the prince said to him—­