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Outline of Topics: Not Western "new woman," but abstract, legal new woman in Japan.—Woman in old régime; wife in old régime; lack of "home"; woman anciently honored.—Legal status in Old Japan, in New Japan; independent person; marriage; right of marriage; husband and wife.—Divorce,—by arrangement and judicial.—Concubinage; child of a concubine.—Prospects of new woman; openings for labor.—The "New Great Learning for Women."—Enlarged educational advantages; new schools.—Women in business.—The Empress and the Crown Princess.—The woman question; further needs; women and Christianity.—Bibliography.

Any intention of using the term "new woman" in a jocose or satirical way is disclaimed at the outset. It is not our purpose to refer at all to such a creature as that called "new woman" in the Occident; for it has not yet appeared to any great extent among the Japanese. It may be true, in some cases, that the modernized Japanese woman is "without gentleness or refinement," and may be called a "parody of a man" or a "sickening sort of person." But, as the "Jiji Shimpo" explains, "the process of the new woman's evolution may be disfigured by some accident"; and "the new woman stands