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The Making of Modern Japan

shitsu (1610), Hakata Merchant Excerpts from the Will of Shimai So

Some clerks, it is said, are going out at night. It should hardly be necessary to repeat the rules against this . . . nocturnal excursions are strictly forbidden. Apprentices . . . are important to a merchant house and should be treated kindly so they too will be loyal to the house. Until you are forty, avoid every luxury and never act or think as one above your station in life . . . Do not cultivate expensive tastes; you should avoid such things as the tea ceremony, swords, daggers, and fine clothes. Above all, do not carry weapons. If you own a sword or some armor that someone gave you, sell it and carry the money instead. Never wander about outside the shop or visit places where you have no business being . . . You should pick up all trash inside and behind the house, and chop up the pieces of rope and short bits of trash to use in plaster, and use the long pieces to make rope. Collect and clean pieces of wood and bamboo longer than five bu and use them as firewood . . . Do as I have done, and waste absolutely nothing. Bargain for the items you need and pay as little as you can, but remember the range of possible prices for each item . . . you can then give the maid only the precise amount she will need. . . . If you provide your servants [a hodgepodge], you and your wife should eat it as well. Even if you intend to eat rice, first sip at least a bit of [the hodgepodge], for your servants will resent it if you do not . . . Those with even a small fortune must remember that their duty in life is to devote themselves to their house and to its business . . . Although a samurai can draw on the produce of his tenured lands to earn his livelihood, a merchant must rely on the profit from his business, for without that profit the money in his bags would soon disappear . . . No matter at what meeting you are, if a fierce argument breaks out, leave at once . . . If people call you a coward for avoiding a fight, tell them that to violate [this] would be tantamount to breaking an oath.

Adapted from J. Mark Ramseyer, Thrift and Diligence: House Codes of Tokugawa Merchant Families, Monumenta Nipponica, 34 (1979).