"falling in love" plays the same
important part in the life and development of the youth in Japan that
it does in the West. It is usually utterly ignored, so far as parental
planning for marriage is concerned. Love is not recognized as a proper
basis for the contraction of marriage, and is accordingly frowned
upon. It is deemed a sign of mental and moral weakness for a man to
fall in love. Under these conditions it is not at all strange that
"falling in love" is not so common an experience as in the West.
Furthermore, this profound experience is not utilized as it is in the
West as a refining and elevating influence in the life of a young man
or woman. In a land where "falling in love" is regarded as an immoral
thing, a breaking out of uncontrollable animal passion, it is not
strange that it should not be glorified by moralists or sanctified by
religion. There are few experiences in the West so ennobling as the
love that a young man and a young woman bear to each other during the
days of their engagement and lasting onward throughout the years of
their lengthening married life. The West has found the secret of
making use of this period in the lives of the young to elevate and
purify them of which the East knows little.

But there are still other and sadder consequences following from the
attitude of the Japanese to the question of "falling in love." It can
hardly be doubted that the vast number of divorces is due to the
defective method of betrothal, a method which disregards the free
choice of the parties most concerned. The system of divorce is, we may
say, the device of society for remedying the inherent defects of the
betrothal system. It treats both the man and the woman as though they
were not persons but unfeeling machines. Personality, for a while
submissive, soon asserts its liberty, in case the married parties
prove uncongenial, and demands the right of divorce. Divorce is thus
the device of thwarted personality. But in addition to this evil,
there is that of concubinage or virtual polygamy, which is often the
result of "falling in love." And then, there is the resort of
hopelessly thwarted personality known in the West as well as in the
East, murder and suicide, and oftentimes even double suicide, referred
to above. The marriage customs of the Orient are such that hopeless
love, though mutual, is far more frequent than in the West, and the
death of lovers in each other's arms, after having together taken the