When a woman marries, her union with her husband is not more considered than her entry into his family. Marriage, it is true, has in all countries this twofold character; but it is especially the case in Japan where but a few decades separate us from the feudal times when, as in medieval Europe, the family was the unit of society; and it is only in recent years that the individual has begun to receive equal consideration with the family as an element of society. The Chinese sages laid down with great emphasis that the primary object of marriage is the perpetuation of the family line and that nothing is more unfilial than the failure of issue. Thus, feudalism and Confucianism combined to impress upon the nation the importance of the family succession. Moreover, every man has a natural desire to preserve his blood from extinction; and there is a still greater incentive towards the same end in the ancestor-worship which lies at the root of Shintoism. It is every man’s duty, according to that cult, to keep alive the memory of his ancestors, a duty which naturally devolves upon the head of the family; whence arises the necessity for every house of having a recognised head. And consequently, under the old regime primogeniture flourished in its strictest form; and younger sons and brothers were held of no account. In the feudal times the offices in the central government and in the daimiates were conferred only on the head of the family, the rest of which were merely his dependants. Cadets, therefore, could only acquire independence by being adopted into other families and becoming their heads, or in rare cases by founding branch families. [Illustration: HUSBAND AND WIFE.]