The innocent party retains all gifts made to him or her by the other and the guilty party loses them all. Both parties are free to contract a new marriage. JUDICIAL SEPARATION.--A separation from bed and board may be granted on the same grounds as entitle a party to an absolute divorce. Such a separation may also be judicially granted by consent of both spouses. After a judicial separation has existed for five years either of the parties may petition the court to enlarge the decree of separation into a decree of absolute divorce. CHAPTER XVII. THE JAPANESE CIVIL CODE. The East and the West, the Past and the Present, meet in the Japanese Civil Code, which became law in January, 1893. It is the first codification of private law that Japan ever had in her long history. Up to that time the basis of Japanese laws and institutions was Chinese moral philosophy, ancestor worship and the old feudal system. The Criminal Code of Japan (_Shin-ritsu-koryo_), enacted in 1870, was the last legal code founded on Chinese philosophy, customs and traditions, and the Revised Criminal Code (_Kaitei-Ritsurei_) is the first group of Japanese laws based upon European jurisprudence and civilization. Three periods may be marked in the history of Japan with regard to the legal aspect of the marriage relation. The first was the ancient Japanese period, the second the Chinese period, and the third, the present, that of modern Japan. The Chinese doctrine of the perpetual obedience of woman to man is expressed in the "Three Obediences": Obedience, while yet unmarried, to the father; obedience, when married, to the husband; obedience, when widowed, to the son. Buddhism regards woman as an unclean creature, a temptation, and an obstacle to peace and holiness. The great revolution in the legal position of woman in Japan which the new Civil Code has brought about is as impressive as all the other changes for the better which have of late years taken place in the land of the Cherry Blossoms. The Chinese and Buddhistic theories concerning womankind have but little influence on modern Japanese law. Under the Civil Code husband and wife are now on an equal footing, except when consideration for their common domestic life requires some modifications. Persons who are about to marry are permitted to make any contract with regard to their individual property, and a woman is capable of owning and controlling her separate property all during marriage. When Japanese law belonged to the Chinese system of jurisprudence there were seven causes for divorce, namely: 1. Sterility. 2. Lewdness. 3. Disobedience to father-in-law or mother-in-law. 4. Loquacity. 5. Larceny. 6. Jealousy. 7. Bad disease. As under the Mosaic law, these causes were invented only for the advantage of the husband. A wife had no right even to desire a divorce from her husband.