Here, then, is the essential difference in the point of view taken of wedded life. In the West it is through romance that people enter into matrimony, and that is apt to melt before the hard facts of life; whereas in Japan we regard it in a more prosaic light, and the Japanese bride takes up the burden of married life at the threshold to lay it down only at the grave. Again, in the West a man may in a vague way think it time for him to marry and then look for a suitable partner; but more often it is the sight of the woman with whom he would willingly share the pleasures and pains of this world that awakens in him the desire to marry and prompts him to propose to her. The possession of the woman he has set his heart upon is the immediate motive of his marriage. In Japan, however, the young man finds life lonely by himself, or is pressed into marriage by his parents or friends, or fails to win the confidence of his circle while he remains single; and accordingly he or his parents ask friends to look for a suitable wife. The impelling cause is here the desire to have a well-ordered establishment, and love is something to be aroused and developed after marriage. As fewer elements of happiness enter into our method of wife-seeking than into the European, it may be conjectured that marriage is naturally a more risky venture with us in respect of domestic felicity. But then, we do not, when we marry, look so much for the fire and heat of love; we are content if the common cares and joys of conjugal life induce in the course of time the warm, equable glow of affection. CHAPTER XV. FAMILY RELATIONS. The family the unit of society—Adoption—The wife’s family relations—The father—Retirement—The retired father—The mother-in-law—A strong-willed daughter-in-law—Tender relations—Domestic discord—Sisters-in-law—Brothers-in-law—The wife usually forewarned—The husband also handicapped—His burdens—Old Japan’s ideas of wifely duties—The Japanese wife’s qualities—Petticoat government—The wife’s influence.