JAPAN
ther the temerity to order the binding up of a lady's hair,[1] which she had hitherto worn hanging loose, or merely bound by a fillet at the back of the head. But the authority of law proved abortive at this point: ladies laughed at a threat announced in an edict of the Emperor Temmu (673–686) that every long-haired female should be called a sorceress. In other respects, however, they had to bow to the law. High rank conferred on a lady the privilege of wearing her own locks; if she was below the sixth grade she had to have a wig. Her garments[2] appear to have been shaped like those of the other sex;[3] a fact which must have simplified matters considerably for the officials of the bureau of etiquette, and which was consistent with the important part acted by women in all affairs of religion and State. The Emperor Temmu (673–686) seems to have considered it desirable that the differences between the habits of the sexes should be still farther obliterated, for he forbade women to ride on horseback with both feet in one stirrup, as had hitherto been their wont, and ordered them to straddle their steeds in male fashion.
The etiquette of official intercourse naturally received much attention side by side with these minute regulations about costume. In the reign of the fanatically religious Empress Suiko (593–
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