Gender Equality 101: Not Quite Here Yet

 Not Quite Here Yet

Before

After

Dower's Embracing Defeat features a few of the posters used in an educational awareness campaign carried out by the occupational authorities. The top two are actually from the same poster. Presumably about Article 14 - the one that supposedly dismantled the feudal system (or did something like that).

And the second half of her artistry was kind of alluded to the other day.

Take a look.

simply a masterpiece

Article 24.

Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.

With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.

So, what did this mean at the time and what about now?

First, a look at then.

From Tokyo and Points East.

(bits from p.71-3)

THE UNASHAMED LECHER, AND OTHERS

Hasegawa was the most unabashed lecher I have ever known. He was a round, Buddha-like man with a cherubic face and an unsettling way of smiling beatifically while offering his American friends “100 per cent virgins.”

Hasegawa had five wives. His No. 1 wife lived in Tokyo; No. 2 in the nearby seaside resort of Atami, where it is the custom of wealthy Japanese to keep their first-string mistresses. Nos. 3,4, and 5 were strategically dispersed through outlying provinces so that no matter where he was Hasegawa would not lack for the comforts of home.

For fifteen years Hasegawa kept the existence of Wife No. 2 from Wife No. 1. Then one day it happened.

The worst possible thing had happened, said Hasegawa. It was not that his wife had discovered his infidelity, for that was taken for granted. But she had read in the papers that under the new Constitution, a document written in the Dai Ichi Building by MacArthur and a host of his aides, wives had rights. Acting upon this intelligence, she had moved out of Hasegawa’s big house into the little house in back.

This, however, was not what distressed Hasegawa, for Wife No. 1 had long before lost her youthful charm. What did distress Hasegawa was that she would no longer cook for him, and of all Hasegawa’s five wives Wife No. 1 was the best cook.

And now?

It really depends on who you ask.

A number of recently retired teachers once told me, over dinner, about how each of them had met their wives.  Arranged marriages apparently. Like an agreement between families with only about a week before the big event where bride and groom actually got to meet.

One fellow talked about how, when he was sent off to teach at a high school somewhere, how this family shows up at his door with their daughter and they just kind of bow. Deeply.

That was one of my ‘oh fuck’ moments.

None of the teachers had more than one wife. 

As for the current generation, people tend to prefer Chritian-esque weddings ‘cause they are kind of romantic with the bride and groom as the stars of the show. It’s about them. Not their families. Not like before. But families still pay dearly. That's assuming anyone is still interested in tying the knot. 

No matter how you s/l/i/c/e it, things could be better.

Anyway…

(cleanup later)