not drink overmuch, nor must she feed her eyes
and ears with theatrical performances, ditties,
and ballads. To temples (whether shinto or
buddhist) and other like places, where there is
a great concourse of people, she should go but
sparingly till she has reached the age of forty.
Her treatment of her handmaidens will
require circumspection. These low and aggra
vating girls have had no proper education; they
are stupid, obstinate, and vulgar in their speech.
When anything in the conduct of their mistress’
husband or parentsinlaw crosses their wishes,
they fill her ears with their invectives, thinking
thereby to render her a service. but any woman
who should listen to this gossip must beware
of the heart burnings it will be sure to breed.
easy is it by reproaches and disobedience to
lose the love of those who, like a woman’s mar
riage connections, were all originally strangers;
and it were surely folly, by believing the prattle
of a serving maid, to diminish the affection of
a precious fatherinlaw and motherinlaw.
if a serving maid is altogether too loquacious
and bad, she should speedily be dismissed, for
it is by the gossip of such persons that occa
sion is given for the troubling of harmony of
kinsmen and the disordering of a household.
again, in her dealings with these low people,
a woman will find many things to disapprove
of. but if she is forever reproving and scolding
and spends her time in bustle and anger, her
household will be in a continual state of dis
turbance. When there is real wrongdoing, she
should occasionally notice it and point out the
path of amendment, while lesser faults should
be quietly endured without anger.
The five worst maladies that afflict the fe
male mind are: indocility, discontent, slander,
jealousy, and silliness. Without any doubt, these
five maladies infest seven or eight out of every
ten women, and it is from these that arises the
inferiority of women to men. a woman should
cure them by selfinspection and selfreproach.
The worst of them all, and the parent of the
other four, is silliness. Woman’s nature is pas
sive. This passiveness, being of the nature of
the night, is dark. Hence, as viewed from the
standard of man’s nature, the foolishness of
woman fails to understand the duties that lie
before her very eyes, perceives not the actions
that will bring down blame upon her own head,
and comprehends not even the things that will
bring down calamities on the heads of her hus
band and children. neither when she blames
and accuses and curses innocent persons, nor
when, in her jealousy of others, she thinks to
set up herself alone, does she see that she is her
own enemy, estranging others and incurring
their hatred. lamentable errors! again, in the
A good many family trees are shady.
—Robert Elliot Gonzales, 1918
education of her children, her blind affection
induces an erroneous system. such is the stu
pidity of her character that it is incumbent on
her, in every particular, to distrust herself and to
obey her husband.
parents! Teach the foregoing maxims to
your daughters from their tenderest years!
Copy them out from time to time that they
may read and never forget them! better than
the garments and diverse vessels which the
fathers of the present day so lavishly bestow
upon their daughters when giving them away
in marriage, were it to teach them thoroughly
these precepts which would guard them as a
precious jewel throughout their lives. How
true is that ancient saying, “a man knows how
to spend a million pieces of money in mar
rying off his daughter, but knows not how to
spend a hundred thousand in bringing up his
child!” such as have daughters must lay this
well to heart.
From “The Greater Learning for Women.” Naming
obedience, chastity, and mercy as among the primary
qualities a wife should embody, the treatise set the
tone for women’s etiquette during the middle of the
Edo period. About Sino-Japanese cultural exchange,
an early English translator of the essay wrote,
“Anyone having the least acquaintance with the
doctrines of the Chinese philosophers will see how
directly the moral and social ideas current in Japan
flow from those in vogue in the Middle Kingdom.”
