ccession,
the _mekake_ will go out of fashion, and the real wife will once more
assume her proper importance.[20]

[20] It is worth while to mention in this connection the noteworthy
efforts made by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Japan in
calling the attention of the public to this custom, and in arousing
public sentiment in favor of legislation against not only this system,
but against the licensed houses of prostitution. Though there has not
yet been any practical result, much discussion has ensued in the
newspapers and magazines, lectures have been given, and much strong
feeling aroused, which may, before long, produce radical change.

Upon the 11th day of February, 1889, the day on which the Emperor, by
his own act in giving a constitution to the people, limited his own
power for the sake of putting his nation upon a level with the most
civilized nations of the earth, he at the same time, and for the first
time, publicly placed his wife upon his own level. In an imperial
progress made through the streets of T[=o]ky[=o], the Emperor and
Empress, for the first time in the history of Japan, rode together in
the imperial coach.[*115] Until then, the Emperor, attended by his chief
gentlemen-in-waiting and his guards, had always headed the procession,
while the Empress must follow at a distance with her own attendants.
That this act on the part of the Emperor signifies the beginning of a
new and better era for the women of Japan, we cannot but hope; for until
the position of the wife and mother in Japan is improved and made
secure, little permanence can be expected in the progress of the nation
toward what is best and highest in the Western civilization. Better
laws, broader education for the women, a change in public opinion on the
subject, caused by the study, by the men educated abroad, of the homes
of Europe and America,--these are the forces which alone can bring the
women of Japan up to that place in the home which their intellectual and
moral qualities fit them to fill. That Japan is infinitely ahead of
other Oriental countries in her practices in this matter is greatly to
her credit; but that she is far behind the civilized nations of Europe
and America, not only in practice but in theory, is a fact that is
incontestable, and a fact that, unless changed, must sooner or later be
a stumbling-block in the path of her progress toward the highest
civilization of which she is capable.[21] The European practi