JAPANESE CIVIL CODE 389 



These grounds were adopted in the "house law" (koryo) of the 

 Taiho Code. But it must be observed that these grounds were 

 not limitative, as in the case of modern legislation. They are only 

 mentioned as just grounds for abandoning a wife, or in some cases, 

 such as barrenness, adultery, or hereditary disease, as a moral obli- 

 gation which a husband owes to his ancestor to abandon the wife, 

 because the object of marriage was the perpetuation of ancestor- 

 worship, and barrenness may cause the failure of heir, adultery the 

 confusion, and hereditary disease the pollution, of ancestral blood. 

 (See my work on Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law.) Practically, 

 a wife could be divorced at the pleasure of her husband, under any 

 slight or flimsy pretext, the most usual being that "She does not 

 conform to the usage of the family." It must be further observed 

 that divorce during this period meant only the abandonment of the 

 wife on the part of the husband. The wife had no legal right to 

 demand divorce from her husband on any ground. Divorce, there- 

 fore, was not a bilateral, nor even a reciprocal, act. It was a uni- 

 lateral act of the husband. To bring an action against the husband 

 or to give information of a crime against him was itself considered 

 a grave offense; and so a wife could not demand divorce in the 

 court of law. Divorce was the privilege of the husband only, as in 

 the Mosaic and other primitive laws. 



But this state of things has changed since the Japanese law passed 

 from the Chinese and entered the European family of laws. In 

 the sixth yearof Meiji (1873) the following law (no. 162) was enacted, 

 which for the first time allowed the wife to bring an action of 

 divorce against the husband: "Whereas it has frequently hap- 

 pened that a wife asked divorce from her husband on account of 

 unavoidable circumstances, to which the latter unreasonably with- 

 held his consent for many years, thereby causing her to lose the 

 opportunity of second marriage, and whereas this is an injury to 

 her right of freedom, it shall be henceforth allowed to the wife to 

 bring an action against her husband, with the assistance of her 

 father, brother, or other relative." This law may be considered as 

 a revolution in the legal position of woman. The new Civil Code went 

 a step farther and placed husband and wife on an equal footing in this 

 respect. According to the Code two kinds of divorce are recognized, 

 consensual and judicial, the former being effected by arrangement 

 of parties, while the latter is granted by a court of law on several 

 grounds specified in art. 813 of the Code. The grounds for judicial 

 divorce include, inter alia, bigamy, adultery, sentence for an offense 

 of grave nature, such cruel treatment or gross insult as make living 

 together unbearable, desertion with evil intent, cruel treatment 

 or gross insult of or by lineal ascendant, uncertainty, for a period 

 of three years or more, whether the consort is alive or dead. Con- 



