It may be wondered why young men ever care to enter a family as _yōshi_. There is only one answer,--it is the attraction of wealth and rank, very rarely that of the daughter herself. In the houses of rich _daimiōs_ without sons, _yōshi_ are very common, and there are many younger sons of the nobility, themselves of high birth, but without prospects, who are glad enough to become great lords. In feudal times, the number of _samurai_ families was limited. Several sons of one family could not establish different _samurai_ families, but all but the eldest son, if they formed separate houses, must enroll themselves among the ranks of the common people. Hence the younger sons were often adopted into other _samurai_ families as _yōshi_, where it was desired to secure a succession to a name that must otherwise die out. Since the Restoration, and the breaking down of the old class distinctions, young men care more for independence than for their rank as _samurai_; and it is now quite difficult to find _yōshi_ to enter _samurai_ families, unless it be because of the attractiveness and beauty of the young lady herself. Many a young girl who could easily make a good marriage with some suitable husband, could she enter his family, is now obliged to take some inferior man as _yōshi_, because few men in these days are willing to change their names, give up their independence, and take upon themselves the support of aged parents-in-law; for this also is expected of the _yōshi_, unless the family that he enters is a wealthy one. From this custom of _yōshi_, and its effect upon the wife's position, we see that, in certain cases, Japanese women are treated as equal with men. It is not because of their sex that they are looked down upon and held in subjection, but it is because of their almost universal dependence of position. The men have the right of inheritance, the education, habits of self-reliance, and are the bread-winners. Wherever the tables are turned, and the men are dependents of the women, and even where the women are independent of the men,--there we find the relations of men to women vastly changed. The women of Japan must know how to do some definite work in the world beyond the work of the home, so that their position will not be one of entire dependence upon father, husband, or son. If fathers divided their estates between sons and daughters alike, and women were given, before the law, right to hold property in their own names, much would be accomplished towards securing them in their positions as wives and mothers; and divorce, the great evil of Japanese home life to-day, would become simply a last resort to preserve the purity of the home, as it is in most civilized countries now.