HOME CUSTOMS IN JAPAN.

Southland Times, Issue 1281, 19 July 1870, Page 3

HOME CUSTOMS IN JAPAN.

M. Humbert, the Smtu Ministerial Jeddo, has just published some amusing details of the domestic life of the Japan, ese. la Japan, marriage is tha universal habit! Almost the only exception* are to be found in the case of certain monastic orders and among the ladies in attendance upon the Empress. Men marry at about 20, and women at 15yearsof age, but except in the Buddist sects the act is marked by no religious ceremony. Among the presents displayed is always to be seen a double-lipped vase. .At a giVennioment one of the bridesmaids advances, fills" it with saJei, and presents it alternately to the bridegroom and brideuntil the goblet is emptied. Under this symbol the idea is conveyed that together the -husband and wife must drink the cup of conjugal life to the dregs — whether it be filled with ambrosia or with gall. 9 Japanese mothers have greater authority over their children than their fathers, and the of women are so far recognised in the country that a woman has wielded the sceptre of the Mikados. But to return to the home life. The law of the coqntry insists that each child shall be daily exposed to the air without clothes, and with its head shaved, and in spite of both rain and sun. During infancy the child's ordinary playmates are a fat, short-legged dbg, and fatter tailless cat. Instruction is sever forced upon either parents or children ; it is supposed. to recommend itself naturally by its own intrinsic merits ; and every man and woman throughout the empire is able to read, write, and cipher. The 30th day after birth every citizen receives his first name ; on attaining his majority, he takes a second, a third on his marriage, a fourth on being vested with any public function, which he changes upon attaining each higher grade, and so on to the name given to him after his death. The last is engraved on his tomb, and he is by it known to all succeeding generations.