torical development to take? These are grave
questions. Changes must and will come without revolts! In the meantime
let us see whether the status of the fair sex under the Bushido regimen
was really so bad as to justify a revolt.

We hear much of the outward respect European knights paid to "God and
the ladies,"--the incongruity of the two terms making Gibbon blush; we
are also told by Hallam that the morality of Chivalry was coarse, that
gallantry implied illicit love. The effect of Chivalry on the weaker
vessel was food for reflection on the part of philosophers, M. Guizot
contending that Feudalism and Chivalry wrought wholesome influences,
while Mr. Spencer tells us that in a militant society (and what is
feudal society if not militant?) the position of woman is necessarily
low, improving only as society becomes more industrial. Now is M.
Guizot's theory true of Japan, or is Mr. Spencer's? In reply I might
aver that both are right. The military class in Japan was restricted to
the samurai, comprising nearly 2,000,000 souls. Above them were the
military nobles, the _daimio_, and the court nobles, the _kuge_--these
higher, sybaritical nobles being fighters only in name. Below them were
masses of the common people--mechanics, tradesmen, and peasants--whose
life was devoted to arts of peace. Thus what Herbert Spencer gives as
the characteristics of a militant type of society may be said to have
been exclusively confined to the samurai class, while those of the
industrial type were applicable to the classes above and below it. This
is well illustrated by the position of woman; for in no class did she
experience less freedom than among the samurai. Strange to say, the
lower the social class--as, for instance, among small artisans--the more
equal was the position of husband and wife. Among the higher nobility,
too, the difference in the relations of the sexes was less marked,
chiefly because there were few occasions to bring the differences of sex
into prominence, the leisurely nobleman having become literally
effeminate. Thus Spencer's dictum was fully exemplified in Old Japan. As
to Guizot's, those who read his presentation of a feudal community will
remember that he had the higher nobility especially under consideration,
so that his generalization applies to the _daimio_ and the _kuge_.

I shall be guilty of gross injustice to historical truth if my words
give one a very low opinion of the status of woman under Bushido.