THE NEW WOMAN IN JAPAN.
WE desire at the outset to disclaim any intention of using the term "new woman" in a jocose or satirical way. It is not our purpose to refer at all to such a creature as that called "new woman" in the Occident; for it has not yet appeared to any great extent among the Japanese. It may be true, in some cases, that the modernized Japanese woman is "without gentle- ness or refinement," and may be called a "parody of a man" or a "sickening sort of person." But, as the Jiji Shimpo explains, "the process of the new woman's evolution may be disfigured by some accident ;" and "the new woman stands out with objec- tionable salience because her environment is so colorless."
Nor do we intend to treat even of the true and noble new woman, of whom Miss Ume Tsuda may conveniently be taken as a type, and who, having experienced the higher and better life, is striving to assist in the uplift of her sisters. We wish in this instance to consider, not the new woman in the concrete, in the flesh, but the abstract, legal new woman that has been created by the new Civil Code of Japan. In looking through the translation of that document by Mr. Gubbins, we have been deeply impressed with the possibilities which lie before the women of new Japan through the rights and privileges vouch- safed to them under that Code.
It is unnecessary to go much into detail on the somewhat trite subject of woman's position under the old regime in Japan. It should, however, be constantly kept in mind that in the most ancient times women were highly esteemed, and even "used to play an important part on the political stage." In Shinto the central object of adoration is the sun, which is worshiped as a goddess. There have been seated on the imperial throne of Japan eight empresses, one of whom is famous for her martial valor and military exploits. It was when Buddhism became powerful that Hindoo and Chinese conceptions of woman's posi- tion molded public opinion and thus eventually changed the
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