The woman question in Japan is at the present moment a matter of much consideration. There seems to be an uneasy feeling in the minds of even the more conservative men that some change in the status of woman is inevitable, if the nation wishes to keep the pace it has set for itself. The Japanese women of the past and of the present are exactly suited to the position accorded them in society, and any attempt to alter them without changing their status only results in making square pegs for round holes. If the pegs hereafter are to be cut square, the holes must be enlarged and squared to fit them. The Japanese woman stands in no need of alteration unless her place in life is somehow enlarged, nor, on the other hand, can she fill a larger place without additional[372] training. The men of New Japan, to whom the opinions and customs of the Western world are becoming daily more familiar, while they shrink aghast, in many cases, at the thought that their women may ever become like the forward, self-assertive, half-masculine women of the West, show a growing tendency to dissatisfaction with the smallness and narrowness of the lives of their wives and daughters,—a growing belief that better educated women would make better homes, and that the ideal home of Europe and America is the product of a more advanced civilization than that of Japan. Reluctantly in many cases, but still almost universally, it is admitted that in the interest of the homes and for the sake of future generations, something must be done to carry the women forward into a position more in harmony with what the nation is reaching for in other directions. This desire shows itself in individual efforts to improve by more advanced education daughters of exceptional promise, and in general efforts for the improvement of the condition of women. Well-to-do[373] fathers are willing to spend more money on the education of their daughters, to send them abroad, if possible, to complete their studies, or to postpone the time of marriage so that plans for higher education may be carried through. Where, ten years ago, the number of women who had been abroad for study might be counted on the fingers of one hand, there are now three or four times that number in Tōkyō alone. Another sign of the times is the fact that husbands going abroad on business or for pleasure are more inclined to take their wives with them, even if it be only for a few months. There are now to be found, in all the larger cities, women who have spent a longer or shorter time in some foreign country, whose minds have been opened and whose horizons have been enlarged by contact with new ideas. All this cannot fail to have its effect, sooner or later, upon the country at large.  
The efforts for the improvement of women in general may be grouped into four classes: by legislation, by education, through the press, and by means of societies for mutual improvement.
 
[374]
 
Of the recent legislation concerning marriage and divorce and its effect on the family, I have spoken in a preceding chapter. The latest statistics show that, while before the new laws were enacted divorces were one to every three marriages, they have now been reduced to one in five. It must be said, however, that the law is still somewhat in advance of public opinion. While the chance of permanence in marriage is better now than it was before the new code came into force, custom is still stronger than the law, and marriage is too often a temporary arrangement. In many cases the wife knows little or nothing of her new rights, and even when she does know, she has seldom the self-assertion to make a stand for them, but meekly submits to the dictates of those whom she is bound by custom, if not by law, to respect and obey without question. But the fact that the laws have actually been improved means, in a country like Japan, in which the government is the moulder of public opinion, that the custom will some day conform to the law.
 
In the matter of property owning,[375] women, under the new code, are fairly independent. As I have already stated, every woman in Japan is expected to become a wife, and as a matter of fact, the number of unmarried women is so small that it is hardly necessary to mention them. Wives, under Japanese law, are divided into two classes: the wife who enters her husband's family, and the wife whose husband becomes a member of her family. In the latter case the wife is the head of the family, is responsible for the debts of the family, and has the right to use and profit by the husband's property. In the former case (and as I have already stated, the great majority of wives enter their husband's families), the husband is responsible, and has, consequently, the right to use and profit by his wife's property. In all cases, unless the husband is physically or mentally unfit, he has the management of his wife's wealth. In case of the husband's disability the woman takes care of her own. A wife may, by application to a court, cause the husband to furnish security for the property that she has intrusted to him; and she may, with her husband's[376] consent, engage in independent business. The property that she thus acquires is her own and not the husband's. Any property in the family, the ownership of which is not perfectly established, belongs to the head of the family, whether male or female. We thus see that the law of Japan fully recognizes the right of married women to hold property, although only in exceptional cases are they allowed the management of their own holdings. The law also regards the wife, in household matters, as her husband's agent.
 
In actual practice, it is not uncommon for the wife to manage the entire income of the family, receiving it from her husband and acting as his treasurer. The wife's own earnings are seldom given to the husband, and her position is one of entire independence in the disposal of whatever she adds to the family revenue. But should the wife bring into the family at marriage property which passes into the husband's management, the chances are that, unless a divorce should occur, she will never lay any claim to the principal, or think of it[377] again as her own. While her husband cannot actually dispose of it without her consent, she is pretty certain to give her consent should he ask it, and he may do very nearly anything that he chooses with it. We thus see that the tendency is to give the management of the income, as a part of the management of the household, to the woman, and leave the disposal of the principal, as a part of the outside business, to the care of the man. This system of domestic finance seems not unlike the common practice in thrifty and well-managed homes in America, and shows that a spirit of mutual confidence between husband and wife belongs to Japan as to Western nations. As the result of my own observation in a number of homes, I should say that the judgment of the wife in money matters is quite as much trusted in Japan as in America, and that, in this one respect at least, her place in the home is as responsible a one as that of the Western housekeeper. One instance may be cited of a woman whose business ability is so well known as to have a national reputation. [378]By birth a member of a family which is remarkable for its success in all financial undertakings, she has inherited a large share of the family characteristic, and is credited with the personal management of a large bank, as well as other successful business undertakings. Her husband's name and not her own appears on the prospectuses and in the newspapers, but unless report is very far astray, she is the business man of the family, and her sound sense and good judgment have built up the fortune which is their common possession.
 
In the educational system of Japan, schools for girls are provided by the government, but no provision for studies more advanced than those of the middle schools for boys is included in the scheme, with the single exception of the Higher Normal School in Tōkyō, in which a limited number of young women are trained to take positions as teachers in the ordinary normal schools for girls. To quote from the Annual Report of the Minister of Education for the year 1898, the latest to which I have access,[379] "Higher female schools are institutions designed to give instruction in such higher subjects of general education as are necessary for females." This shows with considerable completeness the idea that dominates all government and much private effort for the education of women in Japan. The schools are to teach simply such subjects as are necessary for females; anything more would be superfluous, possibly dangerous. The thought of women as individuals, with minds and souls to be trained and developed to their highest possibilities, is still somewhat foreign to the mind of the average Japanese man. In its stead is the idea that females must be instructed in such subjects as are necessary for a proper understanding of their duties as wives and mothers. But if Japan to-day is where England and America were in the first half of the nineteenth century, the country is certainly moving forward, as the statistics in regard to education for the three successive years 1896, 1897, and 1898 show. Great efforts are being made to increase the attendance [380]of girls at the common schools, and with gratifying results.[43]
 
As we advance into the higher schools, the discrepancy in numbers between the two sexes grows greater. In the kindergartens the attendance of girls is nearly equal to that of boys; in the elementary schools there are three boys to two girls; in the higher elementary schools, seven boys to two girls. The boys' middle schools, which are equivalent in grade to the girls' high schools, have fourteen boys taking their courses to every two girls in the high schools. In the apprentice and technical schools, there are fifteen men to every two women. Even the normal schools, which in our own country are almost given over to women, in[381] Japan have six male students to every female. The "special schools," mainly professional, have, to 11,069 men, 73 women, all enrolled in private schools, and presumably taking medical courses. Beyond this point women have no opportunities offered to them. In the higher schools, equivalent to the college and graduate courses given by universities in America, 7,224 young men are given opportunities that women must go abroad to obtain.
 
These figures are, as I have said, for the year 1898. The year 1901 sees two hopeful movements well begun. One of these is the opening of an institution bearing the title of "Female University," endowed and supported by Japanese, through the strenuous efforts of Mr. Jinzo Naruse, a prominent Christian who has spent some time in America. At its opening, five hundred girls were glad to enter, but of these very few are ready for college work. Mr. Naruse, however, believes that in time he will be able to enlarge his college department and diminish the preparatory, which is now almost the whole of the school. He has the[382] support and encouragement of many wealthy and influential Japanese, among them Count Okuma, the well-known progressive statesman. On the day of the opening of the school, Count Okuma, in a speech from the platform, said that the nation would be twice as strong if its women were well educated. This he called "setting up a double standard." He pointed out that Turkey, Egypt, Persia, and China were countries which had tried to get along with a "single standard," and which had fallen conspicuously behind. He called attention to the fact that Japan's primitive religion had for its central figure the Goddess of Light, but that, unfortunately for the well-being of the state, woman had been gradually dethroned and thrust down into a low place. After speaking of the debt that Japan owed to China for the civilization and the ethical system that had stood her so long in good stead, the veteran statesman went on to say that society in Japan was disfigured by abuses which were beyond any simple remedy. The only effective medicine was to be found in a radical reform of the[383] ideals of family life, and this could only be effected by an improvement in the status of woman,—an improvement which such institutions as the one that day opened would greatly aid in bringing about.
 
These words from one of the most honored leaders of Japanese thought voice the feeling that is prevalent throughout Japan in this thirty-fourth year of Méiji. That it is actually moving both government and people is shown by the words of Mr. Kikuchi, Minister of Education, to the Council of Provincial Governors held in Tōkyō in June, 1901. In speaking of the progress of education throughout the country, he stated his intention to push forward the work of secondary education for girls, saying that a prefecture which refused to make provision for such education by 1903 might be compelled to do so by the government.
 
The other hopeful educational effort to which I have alluded is a school started on a small scale, but with a high standard, by a Japanese woman whose name is almost as well known in America as in Japan, as an educator of great ability[384] and earnestness of purpose. After many years of work as a teacher in the Peeresses' School, a place of great honor from the Japanese standpoint, she has resigned her position to carry out a long-cherished plan. With the pecuniary aid of friends in America, she has founded a school for the preparation of young women who have finished the courses heretofore open to them, and who wish to become teachers of English in the Government schools. The examinations for such positions have always been open to women, but, because of the difficulty in securing proper preparation, there are few who pass them. Since its opening in September, 1900, the school has been crowded with promising pupils, and the small accommodations with which it began, although already once enlarged, are stretched to the uttermost. The girls come from the government high schools and from the mission schools, and the course offered to them of three years of study in English literature, composition, translation, and methods of teaching has proved a strong attraction. In recognition, perhaps, of this effort on behalf of[385] her countrywomen, certainly, of her position at the head of her profession, this same woman has this year been appointed on the examining committee for the government English examinations, an honor never before given to one of her sex,—in itself a sign of the change in thought that the last few years have wrought.
 
There can be no doubt that the education of women is moving forward, pushed by the leading men of the country and aided by the earnest work of the women themselves. It is still far behind the education offered to men, and the ideal of most of its promoters is limited to the purely utilitarian; but as long as it moves forward and not backward, and as long as the years of work show an increased number of women fitted to meet the changing conditions of the time, we do well to approve rather than criticise, remembering that the problem is an exceedingly intricate one, and one of which even the best-instructed foreigner can see only a small part of the difficulty.
 
The year 1901 sees the printing-press[386] almost as much of a power in Japan as in the Western world, and it is interesting to notice that among the innumerable newspapers and magazines now published in the country there are some twenty or more devoted exclusively to the interests of women. To be sure, these women's magazines do not undertake to furnish the loftiest intellectual pabulum, the best of them covering, perhaps, the same range of subjects that is included in "Woman's Journals" in the United States. They devote themselves largely to lectures on morals and manners, and instruction as to how best to perform the duties of the home. These magazines are for the most part written and edited by men, many of them very young men, and serve to show rather what men desire that women should think and do, than to give any insight into the minds of the women themselves. With a combined circulation of perhaps 40,000, they enter many homes, and do something, at least, toward the general enlightening and quickening of the feminine mind that is so noticeable in the Japan of to-day. In regard to the general [387]reading of Japanese women who have had the new education, my own observation leads me to believe that they keep themselves well informed of what is going on in their own country, and of the outside world so far as it affects their own country; but that their interest in the world at large is less than that of American women, and only in exceptional cases do they care much for the sayings or doings of foreigners. In this respect they differ widely from the men, whose minds are reaching continually for new things to graft upon the old civilization.
 
In the whole list of publications on the woman question, nothing has ever come out in Japan that compares for outspokenness and radical sentiments with a book published within a year or two by Mr. Fukuzawa, the most influential teacher that Japan has seen in this era of enlightenment. It is in two parts, the first an attack, conducted with much skill and humor, upon Kaibara's "Great Learning of Woman," a book which for nearly four hundred years has been supposed to contain all that a woman should[388] know. The last part of Mr. Fukuzawa's work is a constructive essay upon the "New Great Learning of Woman." So revolutionary are the sentiments expressed in the book that many Japanese men hesitate about allowing their wives and daughters to read it, and in at least one modern Christian school it has been ruled out from the school library as too advanced for the reading of the girls. A brief survey of the sentiments and ideas thus boldly set forth will show how far is the attitude of the Japanese from that of the American public on the woman question. We find in Mr. Fukuzawa's book the lofty ideal that belongs to the most advanced modern thought, but its promulgation as a practical working ideal in Japan was of the nature of a thunderclap. Among less tolerant races, men have been lynched, or burned at the stake, for slighter departures from the average code of thought and morals.
 
Mr. Fukuzawa starts out with the proposition that women are quite equal to men, and should hold equal position and influence. Although he allows that woman's work in the world is quite distinct [389]from that of man, he holds that it is as important, and that she should have the same property-holding privileges and rights. The greatest stress is laid on the point that the same moral obligation for purity of life rests on the husband as on the wife. He goes into the details of the unhappiness resulting from concubinage, putting the duty of the husband in this respect as equal to that of the wife to preserve her chastity, and as this is, next to obedience, the virtue of virtues for a Japanese wife, his argument is as strong as it could well be made. He insists that women should demand as a right from their husbands and families the same privileges and opportunities that men have in society.
 
Such sentiments are a matter of course in America, and they have been held by a few advanced thinkers in Japan, but no one hitherto has dared in so vigorous and positive a way, and with arguments that come so near home, to try to break the chain of custom that holds women down as inferior beings. Kaibara says that if a woman finds her husband doing wrong, she should gently plead with him, choosing [390]a time when he is most inclined to listen. If he refuses, she should not insist on his hearing her, but wait until he is willing to listen, and though she may try two or three times, she should never anger or irritate him. Fukuzawa says that if this applies to the woman, it should also to the man,—that is to say, if a man finds his wife unfaithful, he is to wait for an opportunity when she is in good humor before he remonstrates with her. Fukuzawa also throws new light on the duty of husbands and fathers to their wives and children in another respect. He says that no man should let the sole responsibility for the happiness of the home fall upon his wife; that a man is responsible for the peace of the home as well as the woman. This view of the matter is entirely new in Japan, as the responsibility for an unhappy home is laid as a matter of course upon the wife. The duty of a wife to her parents-in-law is also treated after the same revolutionary manner. Is it to be wondered at that many men fear the influence of such a book upon their gentle, submissive wives? In this connection it[391] is interesting, however, to note that at a recent Shintō wedding, after the religious ceremony, which in itself marks a great step forward in the Japanese ideal of marriage, the priest who united the couple presented to the bride a copy each of the Kaibara and Fukuzawa books, perhaps with a view to letting her take her choice between the old style and the new, perhaps that she might instruct her husband out of the Fukuzawa book while she put in practice herself the time-honored precepts of Kaibara.
 
One feature of the times in Tōkyō, that is perhaps worthy of passing notice, is the tendency of women to form themselves into societies and clubs for the attainment of some common object. Of these women's clubs, the greater proportion are perhaps educational, the members meeting once a month or once a fortnight to listen to a lecture upon some subject that helps to keep them up with the times. There is also a patriotic society, that concerns itself with raising money for sending supplies to soldiers in the field, or for widows and orphans of[392] soldiers, or to help along some other patriotic enterprise. There are societies, too, for general benevolence, or to help in carrying on the work of some one institution. A glance at the membership lists of these associations shows that the motive power is, in almost all cases, the same group of earnest, educated women, who are, in this way and in countless others, doing their utmost to broaden the horizons of their countrywomen, and lead them out into a larger life. This is probably true in the other cities in which a movement of women into clubs and societies is noticeable.
 
It is when the active women of the new way of thinking, whose lives and thoughts are devoted to work and endeavor rather than to the passive submission and self-abnegation of the old days, find themselves suddenly placed among the surroundings of thirty years ago, that the change of conditions becomes most evident. I cannot think of a better way to illustrate this than to tell the story of one of my Japanese friends and her visit to her husband's relatives in a distant provincial city. The lady[393] who told me the story is a stirring, capable young matron, educated after the modern ways, who has spent most of her happy married life of some fifteen or sixteen years entirely in Tōkyō, except for a visit of a year to America. She bears a closer resemblance to many kind-hearted, strong, energetic young American women than to the old-time Japanese lady portrayed in these pages. She rises every morning at five, attends to every detail of her housekeeping, watches carefully and with educated common sense over her family of young children, believes in good food, fresh air, and exercise, for boys and girls alike, and is a helpful friend and good neighbor, filling to the full the position of work and influence in which she is placed. Her husband is a successful business man, whom frequent journeys across the Pacific have made thoroughly cosmopolitan, and their children are accustomed to a freedom from conventional restraints and a healthful diet and regimen such as old Japan never knew.
 
Last year the plan of spending the summer with the husband's relatives,[394] which had been long projected, was actually carried out, and the whole family migrated to the provincial city from which the husband had sprung. The aged mother, a gentlewoman of the old type, was delighted to meet and entertain her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, and did her best, with all old-fashioned courtesy, to make the visit a pleasant one. The house was clean and spacious, the mats soft and white, the bows of the lowest, the voices and speech the politest that Japan could furnish, but the healthy, restless children found the conventional restraints irksome, and the old-fashioned diet of rice and pickles, with hardly a variation from morning till night and from week to week, was quite different from the bountiful table to which they had been accustomed. The younger woman could not criticise her mother-in-law's arrangements, neither could she bear to see her children growing thin and pale before her eyes. She consulted her husband, who, in accordance with the antique ideas of propriety, was served his meals at a different time and in a different room from his wife and[395] family. To his food his mother had always added various delicacies which her old-time Spartan spirit would not allow her to set before her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. It would have been quite contrary to her ideas of rank and etiquette for her to make any modification of her ordinary fare for them. As the son was already supplying the funds for carrying on his mother's establishment, it occurred to him that he might increase her allowance on the plea that her summer expenses must be heavy with so large an addition to her household. But the old lady was sure that nothing more was necessary, and would not think of burdening her son with any larger expenses, and could not be induced to accept the offered increase.
 
Another effort was made to get along upon the meagre fare, but the youngest boy fell ill and had to be taken to a hospital, and the mother decided that something must be done if all the family did not wish to follow him. The happy thought occurred to her of buying something that would be an addition to their scanty menu, and giving it as a present[396] to her mother-in-law. Now a present in Japan can never be refused, so it seemed to the younger woman that she must have found a way of escape from her difficulties. Of course, the present was accepted with many thanks and expressions of unworthiness, and when the meal-hour arrived, each member of the family found an infinitesimal quantity of the delicacy in a small plate at his side. But as soon as the meal was over, the dear old lady, who had by strict economy managed to leave the greater part of the gift untouched, sent out to all the neighbors presents from what had been intended to feed the hungry children at home. The experiment was tried again and again, but always with the same result. No present could be kept for family use alone. Of everything but the barest necessaries, th............