The principle illustrated by this relatively well-known story is not exceptional, and the degree of respect for individual reasoning and belief it demonstrates is by no means unusual in the West. In the individualist countries, society exists to protect the rights and interests of the individual. There is little need to create a double self to satisfy the nessfe of the group. But in Japan individuals form groups to survive. They agree to live under the group mandate that they create together, and they cherish the rules that govern the group. When individual belief is in opposition to group belief, pressure is put on the individual to conform. A good deal of juggling of personal and group considerations goes on behind the scenes, and the double self emerges in an attempt to satisfy both sets of interests.
3. HUSBAND AND WIFE IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETY
Some years ago a young historian told me about a strange system of marriage in a remote hinterland of a certain Asian country. In this isolated community, when a boy reaches adulthood, he marries several women and owns them in common with his brothers. Sometimes three brothers have two wives, or even five wives, in common. A man is allowed socially to own any number of wives as long as he can support them. By the same token, women have several husbands in common. If an agreement is reached, someone's wife can be passed over to another family. Accordingly, a child may have two or more fathers, since the mother can never be sure which husband is the father of that child. Nevertheless, the historian said, no trouble has ever occurred, because the inhabitants of the area have taken the system for granted for many years.
There is only one restriction. A man never can marry a woman (or take over someone's wife) from the same village, regardless of how charming she is or how much he pays for her. A matrimonial union within the same village is strictly prohibited. This is the absolute code of the area. Furthermore, a newly married woman who has come from a neighboring village must return to her native village once after the wedding ceremony and share a bed with a man there.
Under this traditional code of life, the people have passed quite peacefully and happily from generation to generation and have had no conflict whatsoever.
This is a far cry from the random sexual mating or free sex which we sometimes find in modern civilized society. The traditions and customs of a people always have some deeply rooted significance. The polygamous custom of the community described above was the people's way of meeting their isolated geographical conditions. If they had had a monogamous system, as we do, with family members branching off at every marriage, their home economy would have been split into pieces. The dividing of livestock and land would have caused domestic conflict among brothers and sisters, and the confusion would have made it easy for other tribes to invade the area. The people chose polygamous marriage as the best way to unify all the villages and maintain their peaceful community. The prohibition against marriage within the same village was no doubt designed to prevent the hereditary infelicity which often results from intermarriage. The custom of having a newly married woman share a bed with a man from her native village was probably established to maintain friendly relations with the neighboring Hjiige. All are part of the best system for these people, as polished by wisdom.
The culture of any country is the sum total of its values. Every race has cultivated its own culture through its long history and has created the most suitable lifestyle for itself. Therefore, every culture, without exception, is unique. Polygamy might easily seem a strange custom or a primitive practice to Westerners, but from the viewpoint of the villagers described above, the monogamous custom of modern civilized societies would seem unnatural.
The Japanese too have marital customs that may seem unusual to people of other nations. The concept of marriage in Japan is different from that in the West. The most distinctive feature is probably the arranged marriage, which has been practiced in Japan for centuries. During the Turbulent Age (1467-1575) and the following transitional stage and Tokugawa period (1603-1867), daimyo and samurai were all very eager for power. A daughter could, through her marriage, strengthen the family's relation with another family, as was true in the feudal age in the West. A girl was therefore raised carefully, for she was a very valuable item in interfamily politics. A marriage was arranged to suit the family's needs. Since the marriage was not the result of attraction between the young couple, conjugal love was a secondary development, to be achieved later by the pair. In this system, the sexual fidelity of the couple was considered most important, as it played a role in keeping the family unit together. For this reason, many private studies on age differences, physical flexibility, and development of sexual competence were conducted during the Tokugawa period to determine sexual compatibility.
Arranged Marriage
The arranged marriage existed in its full form throughout the Tokugawa period. It is therefore not surprising that the attitudes and customs derived from the system remain in the modern industrial society of Japan. For example, young elites—samurai who seemingly have the greatest social prospects—go about searching for a mate of brilliant social standing. These young elites are the "promising" bachelors of large business companies and bachelors of the "career group" in the central government bureaus, particularly the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Every one of them needs the favorable patronage of a top-ranking official who can support his career development or assume the necessary expenditure for his climb to the top.
It is not unusual for a man like the Chief of the Secretariat Section to carry a dozen pictures of young women with excellent social backgrounds in his briefcase, for one of his unofficial duties is to arrange meetings between these young women and the elite bachelors. In his briefcase are photos of the daughters of ministers, company presidents, bankers, leaders of political parties, and so on. The bureaucratic go-between makes tenacious approaches to the young elites, because the girls themselves, as well as their parents, long for a match with a man who has a bright future.
In the choice of a lifetime partner, sociability, health, comfort, and other criteria have to be taken into account. This information is usually obtained through the bureaucratic go-between, who carries out the informal personnel administration of the marriage. When a young woman's qualification satisfies a man's ambition and a man's potential for future development satisfies a woman's expectation, the two wed and become a pair. Again, conjugal love is a secondary matter for them to create.
Members of the promising "career group" customarily devote long hours to their work, sacrificing their family life as part of the bravery of modern samurai. Thus their conjugal intimacy at home is greatly cut down. Paucity of vacation is another factor that takes away from home life, so these elite samurai frequently end up being better suited to their official cars than to their wives.
An increasing number of young people insist on finding their own mates, leading to love matches in the Western manner. They no longer feel obliged to bow to family wishes, against their own preferences. At the same time, their parents, who are old-fashioned and keen on finding suitable sons-in-law or daughters-in-law, as well as some prudent young people who wish to widen their cruising radius in the search for better-halves, rely on go-betweens who have broad social connections and accordingly greater capacity to arrange meetings for marriages. On the whole, therefore, the arranged marriage remains more popular in Japan than the love match.