ABSTRACT
Almost a century ago, Francis L. Hawks penned the following significant words: “There is one feature in the society of Japan by which the superiority of the people, to all other Oriental nations, is clearly manifest. Woman is recognised as a companion, and not merely treated as a slave. That in the large towns and cities of Japan there is great licentiousness it is reasonable to suppose, for such seems, unhappily, a universal law in all great communities; but it must be said to the credit of the Japanese women, that during all the time of the presence of the squadron in the bay of Yedo, there was none of the usual indication of wantonness and license on the part of the female sex in their occasional relations with the miscellaneous ships' people.”1
