“A woman should look on her husband as if he were Heaven itself and never weary of thinking how she may yield to her husband, and thus escape celestial castigation.”  “Woman must form no friendships and no intimacy, except when ordered to do so by her parents or by the middleman.  Even at the peril of her life, must she harden her heart like a rock or metal, and observe the rules of propriety.”  “A woman has no particular lord.  She must look to her husband as her lord and must serve him with all reverence and worship, not despising or thinking lightly of him.  The great life-long duty of a woman is obedience....  When the husband issues his instructions, the wife must never disobey them....  Should her husband be roused to anger at any time, she must obey him, with fear and trembling.”  Not one word in all these many and specific instructions hints at love and affection.  That which to Western ears is the sweetest word in the English language, the foundation of happiness in the home, the only true bond between husband and wife, parents and children—­LOVE—­does not once appear in this the ideal instruction for Japanese women.

Even to this day divorce is the common occurrence in Japan.  According to Confucius there are seven grounds of divorce:  disobedience, barrenness, lewd conduct, jealousy, leprosy or any other foul or incurable disease, too much talking, and thievishness.  “In plain English, a man may send away his wife whenever he gets tired of her.”

Were the man’s duties to the wife and to her parents as minutely described and insisted on as are those of the wife to the husband and to his parents, this “Greater Learning for Women” would not seem so deficient; but such is not the case.  The woman’s rights are few, yet she bears her lot with marvelous patience.  Indeed, she has acquired a most attractive and patient and modest behavior despite, or is it because of, centuries of well-nigh tyrannical treatment from the male sex.  In some important respects the women of Japan are not to be excelled by those of any other land.  But that this lot has been a happy one I cannot conceive it possible for a European, who knows the meaning of love or home, to contend.  The single item of one divorce for every three marriages tells a tale of sorrow and heartache that is sad to contemplate.  Nor does this include those separations where tentative marriage takes place with a view to learning whether the parties can endure living together.  I have known several such cases.  Neither does this take account of the great number of concubines that may be found in the homes of the higher classes.  A concubine often makes formal divorce quite superfluous.

I by no means contend that the women of Old Japan were all and always miserable.  There was doubtless much happiness and even family joy; affection between husband and wife could assuredly have been found in numberless cases.  But the hardness of life as a whole, the low position held by woman in her relations to man, her lack of legal rights,[D] and her menial position, justify the assertion that there was much room for improvement.