Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎502r] (128/238)

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Japanese Monographs.
If the bridegroom’s parents were not living, the last duty
that marked the day’s events was a joint visit on the part
of both young people to the family altar, in order to do
obeisance before the ihai, or tablets, that recorded the
names of the deceased relatives. For this purpose the
ihai were placed on the tokonoma, with a portion of the
wedding feast, as offerings to the ancestral spirit; a miniature
feast, in fact, was spread, including even a pair of love-birds,
never absent from the marriage menu. For this, the only
religious sign of the event, the bride and groom were
attired in robes of the richest brocaded silk, the groom with
stiff wing-like ornamentation about the shoulders, to empha
size this part of the ceremonial. Then the last act and
courtesy had to be carried through by the groom, whose
duty it was to send to the bride’s household an ample supply
of rice, cakes, and other dainty food, carefully packed in
rich lacquer boxes of special shape and make—no small
item in the expenses of the day, but no doubt gratefully
offered as the winding up of a rather lengthy festival.
One startling item in the ancient institution of marriage
was personal disfigurement on the part of the bride. Before
parents and guardians the honoured lady had to cover up
the natural charms of a set of white teeth with a black dye.
This custom was carried out by means of a severe prescrip
tion consisting of iron filings and gall-nuts stirred up with
a red-hot iron bar, allowed to infuse for a certain number
of days. But as even this formula did not appear impreg
nable, the process of blackening had to be constantly resorted
to, lest a more unsightly disfigurement resulted, when the
dye began to fade away. But the resignation of her
personal charms did not end here. After marriage the wife
had still to pursue the theory, and before she became a
mother custom required her to part with her eyebrows by
the process of shaving, to adopt henceforth a sombre shade
of colour in her attire, to bind round her her sash in a less
ornate fashion, to clip her sleeves of their graceful length,
and to arrange her hair in a less attractive style ; to enter-