Motherhood

The chapter explores the discourse and experience of motherhood within Japan’s low-fertility regime in the early modern period. In a manner rarely seen elsewhere in the early modern world, Japanese families used various means, from infanticide to adoption, to correlate family size with income. The chapter examines a wide range of primary sources to explore the effects of family planning on motherhood in two dimensions, the biological and the social. It also examines motherhood as a lived experience through the writings of Inoue Tsūjo, Kuroda Tosako, and Sekiguchi Chie.

Retirement

The chapter shows how the structure of early modern Japanese families made it imperative that women as well as men retire from active household management in order to allow the next generation to assume full adult responsibilities. For older women, retirement was a respite from work and responsibility, an appropriate time for long-awaited self-indulgence. At the same time, cohabitation of the generations always had the potential to create tension, anger, and anxiety. The chapter examines the representations and realities of retirement for women in popular discourse and in narratives by Inoue Tsūjo, Kuroda Tosako, and a selection of travel diaries written by women.

Filial Piety

The chapter focuses on the transformation in ideals of filial piety for women from an emphasis on the image of the devoted wife to that of crusading daughter, willing to resort to violence and self-sacrifice—both acts forbidden by law and convention—to avenge the unjust death of a parent. The tension between filial norms and exceptions to them also is traced through the lives and writings of Inoue Tsūjo (1660-1738), Nakayama Suzuko (b. 1675), and Itō Maki (1797-1862).

Marriage

The chapter focuses on the contradictions between ideals and practices of marriage. Once married, convention decreed that a woman was to devote herself loyally and exclusively to her husband and his family. And yet among all classes divorce and remarriage were frequent, and women more often than not maintained close relationships to their own families throughout their married lives. The chapter examines instructional manuals’ dictates on marriage, the economy and politics of marriage as an alliance between families, and popular cultural images of wives and wifely behavior. The experience of married life is traced through the lives of Kuroda Tosako (1682-1753), Sekiguchi Chie, and Itō Maki.

Self-Cultivation

The chapter examines the ideal of self-cultivation for women, which involved developing both human virtues and practical skills. The knowledge and skills a woman acquired through the various forms of self-cultivation and education unintentionally broadened her consciousness of herself and opened up possibilities for activities outside of as well as within the household. The effects of self-cultivation are seen in the cases of Inoue Tsūjo and Sekiguchi Chie (1793-1865).

Introduction

In the eleventh month of 1681, a twenty-two-year-old woman named Inoue Tsūjo left her home in Marugame, on the northern coast of Shikoku, and began a journey to the “eastern capital,” Edo. After two weeks, Tsūjo and her traveling party, including her father and several servants, arrived at a border checkpoint in the town of Arai, west of Kyoto, where they presented to inspectors the official passports required by the shogunal government of all travelers. Much to their dismay, the Arai inspectors refused to allow Tsūjo to pass, on the grounds that her travel documents described her as a “woman” (...

Conclusion

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Succession

The chapter looks at the unexpected diversity of women’s roles in determining succession to heirship and preserving family lineages over time. Contrary to common assumptions, the inability to produce an heir biologically by no means condemned a lineage to extinction, or a woman to divorce, due in great part to the prevalence of adoption of heirs. The chapter examines the normative discourse on succession, analyzes statistics on heir adoption, and studies family succession strategies as narrated in the diaries, letters, and memoirs of Inoue Tsūjo, Kuroda Tosako, and Itō Maki.