holds absolute rule over sister or wife. It is true that the upper classes
in Japan are beginning to take a wider view of such matters. Women of
wealthy families are well educated, wear Western dress, and copy Western
manners. They sit at table with their husbands, enter a room or a carriage
before them, and are treated as English women are treated by English men.
But in the middle and lower classes the old state of affairs still remains:
the woman is a servant pure and simple. It is said that even among the
greatest families the old customs are still observed in private. The great
lady who is treated in her Western dress just as her Western sister is
treated takes pride in waiting on her husband when they return to kimono
and obi, just as her grandmother did.

The importance of the male in Japan arises from the religious customs of
the country. The chief of the latter is ancestor-worship. The ancestors
of a family form its household gods; but only the male ancestors are
worshipped: no offerings are ever laid on the shelf of the household gods
before an ancestress. Property, too, passes chiefly in the male line, and
every Japanese father is eager to have a son who shall continue the worship
of his ancestors, and to whom his property may descend.

Thus, the birth of a son is received with great joy in a Japanese
household; though, on the other hand, we must not think that a girl is
ill-treated, or even destroyed, as sometimes happens in China. Not at
all; she is loved and petted just as much as her brother, but she is
not regarded as so important to the family line.

At the age of three the Japanese boy is taken to the temple to give thanks
to the gods. Again, at the age of five, he goes to the temple, once more to
return thanks. Now he is wearing the hakama, the manly garment, and begins
to feel himself quite a man. From this age onwards the Japanese boy among