ce cannot
be grafted upon the Asiatic theory, but the change in the home must be a
radical one, to secure permanent good results. As long as the wife has
no rights which the husband is bound to respect, no great advance can
be made, for human nature is too mean and selfish to give in all cases
to those who are entirely unprotected by law, and entirely unable to
protect themselves, those things which the moral nature declares to be
their due. In the old slave times in the South, many of the negroes were
better fed, better cared for, and happier than they are to-day; but they
were nevertheless at the mercy of men who too often thought only of
themselves, and not of the human bodies and souls over which they had
unlimited power. It was a condition of things that could not be
prevented by educating the masters so as to induce them to be kind to
their slaves; it was a condition that was wrong in theory, and so could
not be righted in practice. In the same way the position of the Japanese
wife is wrong in theory, and can never be righted until legislation has
given to her rights which it still denies. Education will but aggravate
the trouble to a point beyond endurance. The giving to the wife power to
obtain a divorce will not help much, but simply tend to weaken still
further the marriage tie. Nothing can help surely and permanently but
the growth of a sound public opinion, in regard to the position of the
wife, that will, sooner or later, have its effect upon the laws of the
country. Legislation once effected, all the rest will come, and the
wife, secure in her home and her children, will be at the point where
her new education can be of use to her in the administration of her
domestic affairs and the training of her children; and where she will
finally become the friend and companion of her husband, instead of his
mere waitress, seamstress, and housekeeper,--the plaything of his
leisure moments, too often the victim of his caprices.

[21] Many of the thinking men of Japan, though fully recognizing the
injustice of the present position of woman in society, and the necessity
of reform in the marriage and divorce laws, refuse to see the importance
of any movement to change them. Their excuse is, that such power in the
hands of the husband over his wife might be abused, but that in fact it
is not. Wrongs and injustice are rare, they argue, and kind treatment,
affection, and even respect for the wife is the general rule; and tha