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From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Rabu
Message-ID: <2237@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 09:03:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.2237
Posted: Fri Aug  9 09:03:02 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Aug-85 02:35:52 EDT
References: <277@mit-athena.UUCP> <3318@dartvax.UUCP> <723@ptsfa.UUCP> <> <181@proper.UUCP>
Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Distribution: net.nlang
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 17

"Rabu" (Japanese transliteration of "love") implies respectable romantic
love, a new concept in Japanese culture, impoted from the West.
Traditional Japanese culture viewed the affection existing between
husband and wife as quite different from the romantic love a man felt for
a geisha/courtesan/bar girl.  AS recently as the 40s, an American woman
married to a Japanese reported that her husband felt quite embarrassed at
being caught by colleagues spending a quiet evening with his wife (instead
of out at a bar) and explained to her that it was disrespectful to love
one's wife BECAUSE it was treating her like a whore.  There's an old
Japanese proverb that a man who loves his wife is spoiling his mother's
servant.  When we were there in the mid-70s, one of my husband's fellow
programmers had made a love marriage--and was much teased for it around the
office.  (For instance, every time he was even a minute late to work,
people laughed that his wife had delayed him, kissing him.  He'd been
married for several years, so this wans't just teasing a newlywed.)

--Lee Gold