se and
sometimes death. Nevertheless, the Japanese prisons in Tokugawa days
were little, if anything, inferior to the corresponding institutions
in Anglo-Saxon countries at the same period.

LOYALTY AND FILIAL PIETY

In the eyes of the Tokugawa legislators the cardinal virtues were
loyalty and filial piety, and in the inculcation of these, even
justice was relegated to an inferior place. Thus, it was provided
that if a son preferred any public charge against his father, or if a
servant opened a lawsuit against his master, the guilt of the son or
of the servant must be assumed at the outset as an ethical principle.
To such a length was this ethical principle carried that in
regulations issued by Itakura Suo no Kami for the use of the Kyoto
citizens, we find the following provision: "In a suit-at-law between
parent and son judgment should be given for the parent without regard
to the pleading of the son. Even though a parent act with extreme
injustice, it is a gross breach of filial duty that a son should
institute a suit-at-law against a parent. There can be no greater
immorality, and penalty of death should be meted out to the son
unless the parent petitions for his life." In an action between uncle
and nephew a similar principle applied. Further, we find that in
nearly every body of law promulgated throughout the whole of the
Tokugawa period, loyalty and filial piety are placed at the head of
ethical virtues; the practice of etiquette, propriety, and military
and literary accomplishments standing next, while justice and
deference for tradition occupy lower places in the schedule.

A kosatsu (placard) set up in 1682, has the following inscription:
"Strive to be always loyal and filial. Preserve affection between
husbands and wives, brothers, and all relatives; extend sympathy and
compassion to servants." Further, in a street notice posted in Yedo
during the year 1656, we find it ordained that should any disobey a
parent's directions, or reject advice given by a municipal elder or
by the head of a five-households guild, such a person must be brought
before the administrator, who, in the first place, will imprison him;
whereafter, should the malefactor not amend his conduct, he shall be
banished forever; while for anyone showing malice against his father,
arrest and capital punishment should follow immediately.

In these various regulations very little allusion is made to the
subject of female rights. But there is on