dividual and of the people. Even a woman has rights
before the law, in relation to husband, parents, brothers, sisters and
children. It is even beginning to be thought that children have rights.
Let us hope that as the rights are better understood the duties will be
equally clear.

It is coming to pass in Japan that even in government, the sovereign
must consult with his people on all questions pertaining to their
welfare. Although, thus far the constitutional government makes the
ministers responsible to the Sovereign instead of to the Diet, yet the
contention of the enlightened men and the liberal parties is, that the
ministers shall be responsible to the Diet. The time seems at hand when
the sovereign's power over his people will not rest on traditions more
or less uncertain, on history manufactured by governmental order, on
mythological claims based upon the so-called "eternal ages," on
prerogatives upheld by the sword, or on the supposed grace of the gods,
but will be "broad-based upon the people's will." The power of the
rulers will be derived from the consent of the governed. The Emperor
will become the first and chief servant of the nation.

Revision and improvement of the Second Relation will make filial piety
something more real than that unto which China has attained, or Japan
has yet seen, or which is yet universally known in Christendom. The
tyranny of the father and of the older brother, and the sale of
daughters to shame, will pass away; and there will arise in the Japanese
house, the Christian home.

It would be hard to say what Confucianism has done for woman. It is
probable that all civilizations, and systems of philosophy, ethics and
religion, can be well tested by this criterion--the position of woman.
Confucianism virtually admits two standards of morality, one for man,
another for woman.[21] In Chinese Asia adultery is indeed branded as one
of the vilest of crimes, but in common idea and parlance it is a woman's
crime, not man's. So, on the other hand, chastity is a female virtue, it
is part of womanly duty, it has little or no relation to man personally.
Right revision and improvement of the Third Relation will abolish
concubinage. It will reform divorce. It will make love the basis of
marriage. It will change the state of things truthfully pictured in such
books as the Genji Monogatari, or Romance of Prince Genji, with its
examples of horrible lust and incests; the Kojiki or Ethnic scripture,