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THE HUSBAND

One may naturally wonder what would be the qualities of the young man who will claim such a paragon for his wife. Our young men nowadays seem to have an extremely high standard for the qualities of the girls they are willing to marry. Not a whit surprised at the array of angelic qualities spread before them, they might go a step further and hint that the girls would have suited them better if they had been rich into the bargain.

Now, we shall examine the conditions of the young man supposed to be on the look-out for an eligible partner in marriage. The loosening of old family ties, following the liberalization of government and the consequent triumph of democratic and equalitarian principles, has had an unexpected reaction upon the social outlook of young people. What they are gaining in liberty and individual freedom, in opportunities for learning and advancement, for pleasure and luxury, they are losing in the terrible growth in the competition for life’s honours, even for bare existence.

Abolition of Age

One outstanding cause is the abolition of old age. In these days of perennial youth, our old men and old women are forgetting to die off.

Not only do they presume to live beyond the allotted span of existence, such as it was considered to be once, but they refuse to “retire.” If you remind them politely

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[p. 22]

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that they are getting too old for active business, they don’t believe you. In the good old days of feudal daimyō, men after forty and women after thirty used to think of themselves as old and no longer fit for the battles of life; and to think of “retiring” in favour of their sons and daughters-in-law, and thenceforward to cherish no more ambition in life than to make pilgrimages to Buddhist temples or play with the grandchildren. They obediently listened to the superior counsels of their children.

Now that the new era of enlightenment has set the aged free, they constitute a positive menace to the rising generation. They cast a shadow on the quality of filial piety. Even the Government has long since recognized the need of checking this perpetual continuation on life’s stage of these emancipated semi-immortals. Thus it was that the age limit of sixty or thereabouts was set on the service of men in public employment to compel their retirement whether they wished it or not. If left alone, they will not only stick to their jobs until seventy, but may even cast an eye of desire on damsels of twenty, thereby making themselves serious rivals to the rising generation in the fields alike of business, pleasure and love. Instead of filial piety, parental piety must be taught! In the eyes of the rising generation this survival of old persons constitutes a great social and moral problem.

To be able to hold up their heads beside the growing number of these aged rivals on the one hand, and on the other to compete successfully with the swelling tide of a still younger generation pushing from behind, they have to work for all they are worth. Even to go through the Middle School is no joke; it costs money and much hard

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study, plus fair native brains. But that is a mere nothing; no girl will look at a Middle School graduate. He must go up to and through the University, and, for choice, one of the Imperial Universities, or else possess some quality considered to be its equivalent, that is, superior business talent, a gift in art, or the possession of personal wealth.

Battle of Life

There was a time when their father’s name or money meant much in advancing their careers or business opportunities, but that has been reduced almost to zero point. In these days of spreading democratic ideas the fields of human endeavour are increasingly controlled by the principles of a fair field and no favour. Young men, whatever their jobs or aspirations, must make good for themselves; otherwise they get no honour, no living, no wife, no happiness. They must put their shoulders to the wheel and push with all their might or fall behind and perish in the gutter. They must trudge up and up, on all fours, panting, blowing and bleeding, and many are they, poor victims, who drop by the way and die, gasping in the mire. The number who drop out in this race of life is increasing year after year!

In these days when men of seventy and eighty are rushing about in search of profit and pleasure, men in their twenties are mere babies. Not till they are nearing the thirty line and beginning to acquire some proficiency in the type of work they have chosen are they considered old enough or ready enough to talk about marriage. Even then, their capacity to maintain themselves and their wives in comfort and to bring up children will be seriously

[p. 25]

discussed before prospective parents-in-law will be found willing to give their daughters in marriage.

Little wonder that most young would-be husbands should postpone the date of their marriage or talk about the impossibility of an independent home life—a complaint which is echoed in the similar lamentations of young women about finding suitable mates in marriage.

Love Marriage

In this dilemma a part solution seems to have been discovered in a new bond based on the principles of mutual helpfulness of the fifty-fifty variety. Where both high contracting parties are willing to go the half way in overcoming the difficulty, the woman offering to work in one capacity or another, or helping in the household drudgery, thereby supplementing the husband’s income or increasing the economic value of the same income, and the man cutting down the expenses of his bachelor days, then there is a possibility of a happy home life that otherwise would be impossible. In this respect, our young men are extremely fortunate, for Japanese women are generally invested with the traditional virtues of industry, economy and self-effacement, which enable them to make a small income go a long way. It accounts in part for the continued increase of marriages, even in these difficult years, especially those love marriages contracted by valorous and romantic lovers minus parental blessings. At the same time, bachelors and spinsters are increasing.

This variety in the constitution of the Japanese home permits one to point to it as the very type and exemplification of the model Japanese foyer.