"Farmer's wife, in a household of hard-working owners of a small rice and tobacco farm at Fukuroda (village in Kyushu famous for its waterfall), serves an evening meal of noodles in soup, rice and pickles to family members gathered around irori fireplace. As the daughter-in-law of the family head (center) she is obliged by tradition to attend others' needs before her own ('I work from dawn till night, and I am the last to sleep'), and to show less privileged status by kneeling outside the family circle."

From: Time magazine, feature story on "Japanese Women, New Freedoms Amid Old Customs;" March 23, 1959.