OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
plained to her, after which a week's interval must be allowed for her to re-consider her purpose; and that the service she undertakes must be recognised as absolutely terminable by her own free choice at any moment. This last and most important condition is generally overlooked by foreign critics. They imagine that the law sanctions an arrangement by which a girl of tender years is consigned irrevocably to a life of shame and misery, whereas the truth is that the payer of the mundium acquires no right enforceable in opposition to the girl's volition, and cannot recover possession of her person if she quits his service. But though the law withholds all recognition of the principle of coercion, there can be no doubt that, for practical purposes, the girl is coerced. The obligation that dictated her original sacrifice remains valid until the completion of the service for which she has contracted. To abandon that service prematurely, means that her family become liable for the money they received from her employer at the outset. Another obstacle usually stands between the yu-jo and the recovery of her freedom. Things are so managed that she can scarcely avoid contracting debts on account of her wardrobe, and these debts often compel her to accept a fresh term of degradation. Even in such a career ranks and distinctions are contrived, to rouse ambition and encourage extravagance, so that, once entangled in the meshes of shame, escape is cruelly difficult. It has been
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