428 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



In the higher classes marriages are arranged by the parents for their sons and 

 daughters ; amongst the lower, by the parties themselves. Polygamy is unknown. 

 Individuals of the privileged classe^take to themselves concubines, but recognize 

 only one lawful wife. The eldest son, who inherits the property, is not allowed to 

 leave the paternal home. When he marries he takes his wife to his father's house 

 and she assumes his family name. In like manner the eldest daughter is not 

 allowed, when she marries, to leave the paternal home, but her husband removes 

 thereto, and takes her family name. It follows, and such is the established custom, 

 that the eldest son of one family cannot marry the eldest daughter of another, as 

 the latter cannot leave her home. Neither can the second son of one family marry 

 the second daughter of another, as he would be excluded from the houses of both 

 families, and so of each of the remaining children, unless a separate house is pro- 

 vided for them. If the father buys a house for his second or other younger son, 

 and he marries, his wife takes his family name ; but if the wife's father provides 

 the house, then he loses his family name, and takes that of his wife. The eldest 

 son may marry the second or other younger daughter of another family, and the 

 eldest daughter the second or other younger son of another family. Upon the 

 death of the eldest son, the next, or oldest remaining son, if married, returns to the 

 paternal home and resumes the family name. Cousins are allowed to intermarry, 

 but within this degree marriage is forbidden. The purchase or sale of women for 

 wives is unknown amongst the Japanese. Females are marriageable at seventeen. 



They still practise the custom of changing their personal names. It may be 

 done by the father, or by the person, and is limited to one change. It is not 

 unusual, however, for persons to carry the same name through life. In this custom 

 is recognized the very ancient Asiatic and American Indian usage of the " milk 

 name" for childhood, followed by a different one for adult life. The modern or 

 family name has direct relation to the house or home, and consequently must have 

 originated after property had become stable, and its transmission by inheritance 

 had become established by law. This is sufficiently shown by the term itself, E'-a, 

 a house ; E-a'-no, a family ; E-a' -no-no, a family name. The clear and perfect 

 development of the idea, as well as the realization of the family, with the personal 

 and family name distinctions, it may be here repeated, is very high evidence of the 

 progress of the Japanese in a true civilization. 



The Japanese bury their dead in a sitting posture. After the body is dressed in 

 its ordinary apparel, it is placed in an urn of earthenware, about three feet and a 

 half high, with the legs flexed and the arms folded. This urn is then covered and 

 inclosed in a coffin of wood, and buried in the ground, in a grave four feet square 

 and eight feet deep. No personal articles are buried with the deceased, except he 

 is a person of rank entitled to wear two swords, in which case two wooden swords, 

 as insignia of his rank, are deposited in the urn by his side. A tombstone or 

 obelisk is erected near the grave inscribed with the family and personal name of 

 the deceased. 1 



1 The cemeteries of the Japanese are not much unlike our own. In Perry's Japan Expedition, 

 I, 407, there is a representation of a Japanese graveyard and temple which fully sustains this 

 statement. 



