THE JAPANESE VIEW.

Otago Witness, Issue 3854, 24 January 1928, Page 66

THE JAPANESE VIEW.

By Plain Jane.

(Special for thb Otago Witness.) .

Last week my topic was “ This Marriage Business,” and the viewpoint was Western. To-day I purpose a presentation of the Eastern outlook on the problem, especially from the Japanese woman’s side of the question. The Western ideal is to marry for love alone, though marriages for various other reasons are probably more common even if the “ other reasons ” are not generally admitted. Social status is frequently a factor which determines choice, and this applies to both scjes. The wishes of parents is another, though perhaps not operating nearly to the extent of some years ago. There are many others which will occur to my readers, all combining to lower the proportion of “ love matches.” While a large section of the younger generation in Japan are attracted by the idea of the romantic marriage the older folk regard the business of marriage as a partnership in which many qualities enter, and all of which make for success or failure. An article in one of the popular women’s magazines of Japan states the question in plain terms. “ Anybody would prefer to marry a person one likes—a partner one loves—than take a stranger whom one has never seen,” says a writer in the Fujin Club. But then the Eastern view is plainly expressed ’in those words;—

“ When I say that love-marriage is so much preferable to middle-man marriage, I simply state the emotional conditions of the people who marry. But the deciding factor of the happiness and the unhappiness of a married life is not the emotion of the principals at the time: of their marriage. Because the newly-mar-ried are happy at the time of their wedding is no reason whatever for their being happy all through their married life."

The following elaboration is typically Eastern ;—

‘‘ln the first place, love is not a thing that lasts so long. The affection between barents and children, between brothers, q'otwven friend's, these have a long-last-character about them. But love is

different. Even with people who loved each other, and were ready to die for it at one time, love can never continue over five, seven years. Love emotions attack one with extreme violence at certain times. But they do not last. A year, two years, three years. Five years at the most. It is irrational to make love, and love alone, the decisive line between the happiness and the unhappiness of married life. However much two people love each other at first, their love cools in time. When their love cools down, their married life does not come to a close. Therefore, to build married life, which must continue, on the foundation of an emotion that cannot last is wrong. Also people are wrong in putting so much emphasis on love as they arc doing nowadays in Japan. ** Love is the power that dominates us all in life —I know how very great and mighty it is. It is like the power of an ocean wave. It sweeps everything before it. But there is a power even stronger than that—Life, meaning the realities of life. Love is like a fair rainbow bridging two sexes. The beauty of the rainbow dazzles men and women and brings them together irresistibly—even when they are strangers to each other. When a man and a woman are brought together, the function of the rainbow is finished. It vanishes. After that, only life realities remain. . . . Married life is not a dream or a fancy. It is real in: the extreme. A man who thinks that married life is like love, as .fair as a rainbow, is bound to be disappointed when he comes to take a close-range view of it.

“ Both men and women before they marry, paint the married state as a life of extreme happiness. All that comes from confusing married life with love-life. It: is the easiest blunder for unmarried people to commit. It is a dangerous fancy. For it is a sure incubator for disappointments. Two, three years, after marriage, inevitable reaction sets in with the people who contracted a love marriage. In their disappointment they cry out for some new thrills and excitements to counteract and drown their disappointments. And that, too, often means opening wide the door for trouble.” If love and marriage can be combined so much the better, but this writer regards the combination as rare enough almost to be an accident.

“ People who demand the happy fulfilment of their love life in their married life are asking a bit too much at the hand of fate,” says the writer. “ Lovelife deals with love, and love alone. Married life is not as simple as that. It is complex—troublesome. Love-life begins and ends with a man and a woman and their relations towards each other. Married life, on the other hand, doesn’t stop with a man and his wife and the relations between them. ’There enters into the consideration, the family and its relations with the world at large. And they are complex, troublesome things. Married life is really an enterprise which aims to unite two characters of different sex into one harmonious whole. A single man is not a complete human being. Neither is a single woman. To make them complete is the aim and end of a successful married life. Whenever we see a couple who have been married for 30 or 40 years, we somehow get the impression of beholding _ completed, rounded human beings. We feel the touch of human beauty about them. But there is nothing easy about this enterprise. It is a hard and thorny road to travel in all truth, laden with difficulties. For it is no frivolous undertaking to bring together in one harmonious whole two independent characters. What’s more, it is no joyous experience. I do not think married life is a happy thing. Rather, I look upon it as a training hall for us humans, full of bitterness, trials, and tribulations. And as a man and a woman go, hand in hand, through, life, struggling, worrying, and tasting bitterness thereof together, they succeed in polishing and drilling each other into one harmonious whole. That I think is the real meaning of married life.” The Spartan view is presented m a svmposium by Japanese matrons which appeared in the pages of Shufuno-Tomo, the high-class Tokyo women’s magazine. In this Madame Okada, daughter of Admiral Togo, speaking of her father s advice, says:— “ In the ears of the new people of the present day, it may sound as old-fashioned nonsense, quite out of tune with the ideas of these -progressive days of ours. Our new ladies worship personal liberty. They carry, out their ideas with all the freedom of action nowadays. It is very likely that they would laugh at my father's advice as a bit of old-fashioned folly; But to me it was quite different.” And in these terms the. Samurai spirit was imparted into the advice of Admiral Togo to his daughter: — “ Once you are wed. your husband’s house if your home. You must do your utmost in it—for it. Whatever happens, never turn your back on it—never return here.” '

The daughter of ex-Premier Wakatsuki, Madame Tawara, offers . these observations : —

“My father .is of the no-mouth type most of the time, and bad very little: to say to me. At the time of my marriage he had just given up the portfolio of the Minister- of Finance in the Katsura Cabinet. There was a good deal of political turmoil at the time. He was exceedingly busy then, so that is was rare indeed to find him for any length of time at home any day.' I do not recall anything particular in the shape of advice among my wedding presents from father. But mother gave me this—she repeated it time and again t

“ Be independent. Never lean on others. You should build from a small beginning to a big end.” “ My husband at the time of our marriage was a mere unknown official in the Department of Finance. Mother evidently thought it important that I should cultivate the spirit of independence both in an economic and a mental sense. I have kept that advice of mother’s constantly before my eyes all through my married years. And as long as we had no surplus means, I never permitted myself to listen to the tempting voice of ease and luxury—no theatres, no concerts, no gay outings that I could not afford. And I think that the r igid observance of this parental advice had much to do with the many long years of _ marital peace and happiness I have enjoved.”

_ The daughter of the former Chief Justice Yokota. of the Supreme Court, presents the following: — “ I graduated from the Gakushu-In (Peers’ School) in April, 1920. and in June of the same year I married Tajiro. I had known my husband for many years before o’ir marriage. He had been a constant visitor at our home, and I had enjoyed his company after the free and new fashion of social intercourse among young folks, which is gaining wider and wider vogue in the changing Nippon of to-day. Both father and mother had rather new ideas about the education of their children, and allowed us to develop along ou r own individual lines with considerable modern freedom. About the only advice they gave me at the time of my marriage was:

“Man and wife should live in mutiial trust—in complete faith in each other.” A perfectly natural sentiment on the part of my parents who had a complete confidence in Tajiro. Tajiro entered our Foreign Office a s soon as he finished school. Soon he was ordered abroad. And I came to realise the meaning of my parental advice more and more when we went to live in a foreign country. There is no happiness comparable to the thought that your husband believes in you utterly —that lie commands your faith absolutely. There is nothing like it in life.” I have quoted perhaps too extensively, but to me these Eastern views appear not

only interesting, but fascinating, and, after all, are our Western sisters not seeking, as we are seeking, the goal of happiness? They have their ideas of life; we have ours; and though we may feel with Kipling that

East is East, and West 'is West, And never the twain shall meet, there is the same ideal of happiness implanted in all of us irrespective of creed or colour.

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

_ Keep chamois leather soft by rinsing it in soapy water after you have washed it. Lemon and salt clean brass or copper trays. But wash off with soapy water and then polish.

When sewing.have a waste-paper basket near, and drop scraps into it the moment you cut or pare.

A neat, small tray on the table does '** to throw oddments of cotton or fluff into at once.

When a cake sticks to a tin, stand it over a vessel containing boiling water. The heat will loosen the cake, which can then be removed without breaking. Mice will often prefer oats or biscuit to cheese, and if some scraps of ’..read and dripping are. placed in the neighbourhood of each trap they will be an additional lure.

A sponge cake always looks more tempting if there is a nice crust on the top. This is obtained by sprinkling caster sugar over the top of the cake before putting it into the oven. Never drag or pull those thin stockings that wear out quickly unless they are properly treated. Gather the leg in your hands and put in your foot, then slip on the stocking. Push the whole stocking down and slip it off with your hand. When washing, work about in tha lather of lux; never rub. Spread out neatly to dry with the heel pulled to 3tan<l up. and press before dry with A rather cool iron«