=Sexual Immorality and Uncleanness=.--It was probably because the consummation of a marriage was thought to defile the house in which it took place that a special nuptial hut was in the most ancient times provided for this purpose. The same idea is illustrated by the custom which existed until quite recently of sousing with buckets of water on New Year's Day young men who had been married during the preceding year. According to a novel called 'Hino-deshima' it is now the bride who is thus saluted while on her way to her husband's house. The bridegroom is treated by the boys of the neighbourhood to volleys of stones which break his paper windows. In later times sexual intercourse generally caused temporary uncleanness. Virgins were selected as priestesses and as dancers before the Gods. But there were no vows of perpetual chastity, and they married in due time just like other girls. The _Nihongi_ mentions a case of the appointment of a princess as priestess having been cancelled on account of her unchastity. A modern Japanese writer says: "At Ise to-day Laïs opens her doors to the pilgrim almost within sight of the sacred groves. To accept her invitation does not disqualify him in his own eyes nor in the eyes of any one else for the subsequent achievement of his pious purpose. A single act of lustration restores his moral as well as his physical purity." Perhaps this puts the matter too strongly. Those shameless wights Yajirō and Kidahachi, the heroes of the _Hizakurige_, were troubled with scruples in this matter, which were not, however, invincible. With such ideas of uncleanness it is not surprising that Shinto never had a marriage ceremony. No Shinto or other priest is present. We must, therefore, take with some reserve Max Müller's statement that marriage had a religious character from the very beginning of history. It is to be noted, however, that in modern times Susa no wo and his wife Inadahime are thought to preside over connubial happiness, and that something of a religious flavour is contributed to the marriage ceremony by setting out on a stand (_shimadai_) figures of the old man and old woman of Takasago, spirits of two ancient fir-trees, who are the Darby and Joan of Japanese legend. Uncleanness includes bestiality, incest of parent and child, of a man with his mother-in-law or stepdaughter,[200] but not of brothers and half-sisters by the father's side. Unions with a sister by the mother's side were unlawful and offensive to the Gods, but they are not specially enumerated in the Ohoharahi schedule.