But it is not the girls alone who feel the inevitableness of marriage. Men are also in a like predicament. Bachelorhood has none of the ease and comfort which often attach to it in the West. Life in hotels and lodging-houses is both uncomfortable and insecure; for the doors, being all sliding-doors, cannot be locked, and consequently one is always liable to intrusion at any hour of day or night by other inmates of the house. Flats are, from the very structure of Japanese houses, impracticable. In some houses there are rooms to let; but meals are seldom provided. The only way is to rent a house, but then housekeepers as such are unknown. To leave the house in the care of ordinary servants is both uneconomical and inconvenient, for they are not likely to stint themselves or be thrifty; they would, on the contrary, rather be wasteful so as to be popular with the tradesmen; and far from keeping the house tidy as all Japanese houses need to be, they would not sweep or clean more than they could help. Indeed, from the appearance of the house one can always tell if it has a mistress or other responsible overseer. A bachelor can have a comfortable establishment, it is true, by placing it under the management of a near relative; but a sister would herself wish to marry and would not therefore be its permanent head, while a mother or aunt would prefer to put it under a wife and lead a life of greater ease and leisure. A mother, moreover, would naturally wish to see her grandchildren. Besides, a bachelor in fair circumstances is as a rule so pestered by go-betweens that unless he is resolutely set against marriage, he is often mated before he knows his own mind. Thus, marriage is looked upon as an inevitable fate by both sexes. In a country like Japan where ceremony envelops every phase of life, such an important event as a wedding is, as may be expected, governed at every step by strict etiquette, and to celebrate it in proper style one needs to call in a regular professor of etiquette. But though weddings in high society are still perplexing tangles of formalities, the tendency to-day among the middle classes is to strip them as much as possible of unnecessary ceremony. It is, in fact, difficult at the present moment to give the exact procedure which is followed in an ordinary wedding as it is frequently modified by mutual agreement between the parties concerned; but the following may be taken as a fairly accurate description of the usual procedure in these days. [Illustration: BETROTHAL PRESENTS. (FROM A PICTURE BY SUKENOBU, 1678–1751)]