HOUSEHOLD DOMESTICS

BY the time a girl is fifteen or sixteen she is regarded as sufficiently large, strong, and mature to enter on more responsible work. Among the several fields open to her is that of gejo, or domestic service, of which we may distinguish two varieties: those who serve in private families and those who become maids in hotels and tea-houses. A komori may gradually work into the position of a domestic; indeed, in the majority of homes a komori not only tends the baby but aids the mother in her household work. It is only in the homes of the well-to-do that both gejo and komori are to be found. The work of a gejo consists in taking the brunt of the cooking, housecleaning, and washing, serving from daybreak, that is, from five or six in the morning, till ten or eleven at night. Her status is somewhat better than that of the komori. Her hours of service however are long and taxing. Her time for rest is after the family has retired for the night and before they rise in the morning. Frequently her private room is the front hall, or entrance room; she accordingly is the last person to retire and the first to rise. It is to be noted however that in the houses of the middle classes in the large cities there is usually now a small room for the servant-girl. The gejo draws the water from the well, washes the rice, lights the fires, cooks and lives in the dingy and usually smoky kitchen, washes the clothes, aids in the sewing, and has no relaxation but an occasional festival. Her lot is truly pitiful.

Besides her living (eating what is left from the family meal), she usually receives some two to three yen per month. Recently however some have been receiving even as much as five yen. The drudgery and monotony of the life are usually such that the opportunity to become a factory hand is quickly taken, especially as the cash earnings are relatively large. I am told by Japanese ladies that the problem of securing domestics in the cities or in the vicinities of factories is becoming serious.

Of course the average domestic has no opportunity nor desire for mental improvement. Having enjoyed no education to speak of, she can read neither papers nor books, nor may she attend meetings fitted to cultivate the mind or promote her higher life. Thus she is controlled by the culture and mental and moral traditions of the home in which she was reared.

Household domestics are recruited from farming and industrial families. They earn their living for from four to six years, until their parents or guardians find them husbands; for in Japan the girl has practically nothing to say as to whom she marries. Marriage is based, not on mutual acquaintance, much less on mutual attraction, but wholly on the judgment of parents or go-betweens, and is from first to last—if it is proper—a utilitarian affair.

It thus comes to pass that in Japan domestics are, as a rule, young unmarried women. A domestic in her thirties, or over, is rare, and is almost certain to be a widow or a divorced woman.