So far as we can see, the religion founded by one who deserted his wife and babe did nothing to check concubinage or polygamy.  It simply allowed these things, or ameliorated their ancient barbaric conditions through the law of kindness.  Nevertheless, it brought education and culture within the family as well as within the court.  It would be an interesting question to discuss how far the age of classic vernacular prose or the early mediaeval literature of romance, which is almost wholly the creation of woman,[57] is due to Buddhism, or how far the credit belongs, by induction or reaction, to the Chinese movement in favor of learning.  Certainly, the faith of India touches and feeds the imagination far more than does that of China.  Certainly also, the animating spirit of most of the popular literature is due to Buddhistic culture.  The Shin sect, which permits the marriage of the priests and preaches the salvation of woman, probably leads all others in according honor to her as well as in elevating her social position.

Buddhism, like Roman Catholicism, and as compared to Confucianism which is protestant and masculine, is feminine in its type.  In Japan the place of the holy Virgin Mary is taken by Kuannon, the goddess of mercy; and her shrine is one of the most popular of all.  Much the same may be said of Benten, the queen of the heaven and mistress of the seas.  The angels of Buddhism are always feminine, and, as in the unscriptural and pagan conception of Christian angels, have wings.[58] So also in the legends of Gautama, in the Buddhist lives of the saints, and in legendary lore as well as in glyptic and pictorial art, the female being transfigured in loveliness is a striking figure.  Nevertheless, after all is summed up that can possibly be said in favor of Buddhism, the position it accords to woman is not only immeasurably beneath that given by Christianity, but is below that conceded by Shint[=o], which knows not only goddesses and heroines, but also priestesses and empresses.[59]

According to the popular ethical view as photographed in language, literature and art, jealousy is always represented by a female demon.  Indeed, most of the tempters, devils, and transformations of humanity into malign beings, whether pretas, asuras, oni, foxes, badgers, or cats, are females.  As the Chinese ideographs associate all things weak or vile with women, so the tell-tale words of Japanese daily speech are but reflections of the dogmas coined in the Buddhist mint.  In Japanese, chastity means not moral cleanliness without regard to sex, but only womanly duties.  For, while the man is allowed a loose foot, the woman is expected not only to be absolutely spotless, but also never to show any jealousy, however wide the husband may roam, or however numerous may be the concubines in his family.  In a word, there is the double standard of morals, not only of priest and laity, but of man and woman.  The position of the Japanese woman even of to-day, despite that eagerness once shown to educate her—­an eagerness which soon cooled in the government schools, but which keeps an even pulse in the Christian home and college—­is still relatively one of degradation as compared with that of her sister in Christendom.  For this, the mid-Asian religion is not wholly responsible, yet it is largely so.