The Portuguese were the first Europeans to step foot on Japan in large numbers, starting during the Sengoku Era in the mid 16th century.
Interestingly enough, some Portuguese and Spaniards who actually made the voyage to Japan, thought of Japanese people as 'white'. For context, they thought of other peoples in their various colonial holdings as 'blacks' or negars**(n*ggers).**
For example, according to Juan Gonzales Mendoza in a book written in 1585, Chinese people were classified into various groups, with those who lived in Canton and "those of the sea-coast and of the mountains" being black skinned, while those in central or inner China being 'white' or 'whiter'.In contrast, a historian named Diogo do Cuoto wrote in 1612 that the Japanese were "whiter than the Chinese".This has massive ramifications because Europe in general was very race conscious at the time.
They were also still quite religious and the Japanese spiritual ways of Shinto and Buddhism were repulsive and things to be replaced by civilized and proper Christianity as soon as possible, hence the many missions sent by the Portuguese along with their trade ships.
The Portuguese also saw Japanese women as very interesting. Many thought that they were proper and observed that they were always diligently working, committed to house and hearth, devoted to family, community and husband. Note that we shouldn't necessarily take a foreigner's account of Japanese daily life at total face value as completely understanding the society at large.
And on the flip side, they also noted that it appeared that Japanese women had a great deal more freedom than their European counterparts.Jorge Alvarez, a ship captain wrote about his visit to Japan in 1547, saying women were allowed to "go hither and thither as they list". They could leave the house when they wished without their husband constantly being informed, they were sometimes found in positions running businesses or managing things.
I am no expert in Portuguese women's daily lives or their freedoms but these written accounts certainly seem to imply that the first Europeans to set foot in Japan were intrigued by Japanese women and how they lived their lives in contrast to European women. Intrigued enough to buy some Japanese women and various youths as slaves. The jesuits in Japan opposed this slave trade vehemently as the Portuguese kings had outlawed slavery by 1571 but it was common enough that it was written about multiple times.
These women were often sold by brothels in Nagasaki, participating in a very lucrative trade that by all rights should have been illegal for the Portuguese traders and sailors. Selling a daughter was not that uncommon in Japan. Unfortunately, many of these women and men that were bought would die on the journey.Speaking about women's freedoms in Japan, there is an image of this very reserved, very polite and subdued Japanese (or Asian in general) women. This, of course, extends to sexual freedom.
There is a sort of image of the sexual prude that's associated with subservience, reserved quiet Japanese women. **During the Edo Period particularly, women were pretty sexually liberated. They were not forced to stay virgins until marriage, and in fact, it would seem that women were sometimes expected to be experienced well before their marriage so they would be pleasant in bed on their wedding night with their husbands.Japanese men were also fairly sexually liberated and having lovers was not looked down upon.**Arguably, this changed after the contact with Western values that looked down poorly on this sexual freedoms, particularly of women sexual freedom.
But, a huge disclaimer, this mainly applied to the masses, or 93% of the population. Those of the Imperial court, attendants of the Shogun and the higher samurai classes were expected to act more classy. They took a great deal of interest in a girl's chastity, and adultery was looked down upon a great deal. Europeans commented on this contrast between Japanese 'nobility' and the commoners extensively.
English visitors to Japan also spoke very highly of the Japanese people and considered them to be one of the civilized nations of the world, seeing their people as courageous, well spoken, intelligent, 'without deceit' (Chinese people were considered to be inscrutable and untrustworthy), etc. The East India Company described Japanese people as 'very industrious people & excellent workmen".
On the Japanese side, funnily enough, there was not very much a sense of 'being Japanese', even though the Europeans lumped them all together in one big group.
The nationalistic idea of being 'Japanese' did not really exist until the educational and political reforms of the Meiji Restoration, some two hundred years after the first Portuguese voyage to Japan. Before this, most Japanese people thought of themselves in terms of clans and/or villages/towns/cities. Their familial and political ties came first, and then more broadly, their regions. Those in Satsuma would not consider themselves those from Iga to be the same peoples.
During this time, neither Europeans nor Japanese marriages were very much focused on love or affection as a prerequisite. Marriages were largely practical in nature, and were viewed as more important for the family than it was for the two individuals involved. Monogamy was also the standard in both places. These details are often glossed over because they were taken as obvious by contemporary observers.
