Japanese Girls and Women: Revised and Enlarged Edition

								

but the families of highest rank, must serve it herself. Indeed, it is
quite the custom in families of the higher classes, should a guest, whom
it is desired to receive with especial honor, dine at the house, to
serve the meal, not with the family, but separately for the father and
his visitor; and it is the duty of the wife or daughter, oftener the
latter, to wait on them. This is in honor of the guest, not on account
of the lack of servants, for there may be any number of them within
call, or even in the back part of the room, ready to receive from the
hands of the young girl what she has removed. She must, therefore, know
the proper etiquette of the table, how to serve carefully and neatly,
and, above all, have the skill to ply the saké bottle, so that the
house may keep up its reputation for hospitality. Should guests arrive
in the absence of her parents, she must receive and entertain them until
the master or mistress of the house returns. She also feels a certain
care about the behavior of the younger members of the family, especially
in the absence of the parents. In these various ways she is trained for
taking upon herself the cares of a household when the time comes. In all
but the very wealthiest and most aristocratic families, the daughters of
the house do a large part of the simple housework. In a house with no
furniture, no carpets, no bric-à-brac, no mirrors, picture frames or
glasses to be cared for, no stoves or furnaces, no windows to wash, a
large part of the cooking to be done outside, and no latest styles to be
imitated in clothing, the amount of work to be done by women is
considerably diminished, but still there remains enough to take a good
deal of time. Every morning there are the beds to be rolled up and
stored away in the closet, the mosquito nets to be taken down, the rooms
to be swept, dusted, and aired before breakfast. Besides this, there is
the washing and polishing of the engawa, or piazza, which runs around
the outside of a Japanese house between the shoji, or paper screens
that serve as windows, and the amado, or sliding shutters, that are
closed only at night, or during heavy, driving rains. Breakfast is to be
cooked and served, dishes to be washed (in cold water); and then perhaps
there is marketing to be done, either at shops outside or from the
vendors of fish and vegetables who bring their huge baskets of
provisions to the door; but after these duties are performed, it is
possible to sit down quietly to the day's work of sewing, studying, or
whatever else may suit the taste or necessities of the housewife. Of
sewing there is always a good deal to be done, for many Japanese dresses
must be taken to pieces whenever they are washed, and are turned, dyed,
and made over again and again, so long as there is a shred of the
original material left to work upon. There is washing, too, to be done,
although neither with hot water nor soap; and in the place of ironing,