Under the system
which has ruled Japan for a millennium and a half, divorce has been
almost entirely in the hands of the husband, and the document of
separation, entitled in common parlance the "three lines and a half,"
was invariably written by the man. A woman might indeed nominally obtain
a divorce from her husband, but not actually; for the severance of the
marital tie would be the work of the house or relatives, rather than the
act of the wife, who was not "a person" in the case. Indeed, in the
olden time a woman was not a person in the eye of the law, but rather a
chattel. The case is somewhat different under the new codes,[26] but the
looseness of the marriage tie is still a scandal to thinking Japanese.
Since the breaking up of the feudal system and the disarrangement of the
old social and moral standards, the statistics made annually from the
official census show that the ratio of divorce to marriage is very
nearly as one to three.[27]
The Elder and the Younger Brother.
The Fourth Relation is that of Elder Brother and Younger Brother. As we
have said, foreigners in translating some of the Chinese and Japanese
terms used in the system of Confucius are often led into errors by
supposing that the Christian conception of family life prevails also in
Chinese Asia.
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