marriage in japan,

Temuka Leader, Issue 2154, 24 January 1891, Page 3

marriage in japan,

A native Japanese paper mentions a case of a man aged 40 this year, living in the province of B'zen, who has warned and divorced 35 wives, and is now married to the 36th. He was first married at 18, and the reason assigned for this extraordinary example of inconstancy is that ha haa a younger aiater of extremely jealous and rancorous disposition, who, from the moment that a bride enters the bouse, institutes a system of persecution, which soon drives the unhappy woman to ask her husband for a divorce. The husband is helpless to restrain the vagaries of his sinter, and cannot turn her out, so the wretched business goes on year after year. The native chronicler adds a circumstance which is improbable, even in the East, lie says that in two cases the brides arriving at the door of their future home, changed color, and, declaring that they recognised the bouse as one where they bad already passed some months of miserable wedlock, fled without farther parley. Commenting upon the story, tbs Japan Mail says that whether accurate in all respects or not, it illustrates the difference between Japanese and English fashions in respect to marriage. Among the lower orders in Japan sentiment is seldom allowed to play any influential part in the arrangements prelimiary to matrimony. In many oases the man and the woman have never seen each other until they are formally brought together with the object of securing their consent to become husband and wife, and it rare'y happens that either is so impolite as to conceive or admit any disagreeable impression after this interview. The higher the social scale the more attention is peid to the fancies of the man • and of late those of the women also are beginning to be regarded. Bat the principle underlying the whole martial relation in Japan seems to be that the affection which really survives the passage of years and makes life happy is not the love which precedes union, but the respect, esteem, and sense of mutual he'pfulness that grows up after it. In short marriage in Japan is a preliminary experiment whereas in the West it is a final contract. At the same time to be divorced by her husband is a disgrace to a Japanese wife and to divorce his wife without reasonable cause is a disgrace to a husband. Public opinion and traditional custom provide for the marriage state safegurads of very to'erable efficiency even among tbo lower claeseses, and of great potency among the upper classes. It may be briefly stated that freedom of divorce is in the inverse ratio of the social prominence|of the parties concerned. The more important the position occupied by a man, the less fickleness and caprice is he expected to show in such matters ; whence it follows that the spirit of Japanese civilisation makes for the permanency of the marriage tie.