The Problem of Women in Early Modern Japan

要旨

Contrary to popular perceptions of premodern Japanese women as oppressed and subjugated by patriarchal norms, this book contends that when we read texts by and about women written between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, we see a broad and complex picture of women’s lives, one in which women were far from passive or powerless. Instead, women were seen as active participants in society who could effect both positive and negative change. This book explores the tension inherent in women’s roles and lives through close readings of two types of primary sources: the first includes prescriptive literature and instructional manuals for women, as well as fiction, drama, woodblock prints and book illustrations, all of which were produced and circulated in considerable number throughout the Tokugawa period. The second body of sources the book examines consists of narratives of women’s lives, including diaries and memoirs written by women or their family members, primarily those of the samurai class, whose lives spanned the entirety of the Tokugawa period. These personal narratives reveal how individual women grappled throughout their lives with the challenges presented by social, political, and legal norms for gendered behavior, the very norms reinforced in the aforementioned prescriptive literature. The book combines elements of cultural and social history, balancing close readings of primary sources with investigation of trends, patterns, and data that reflect the growth and change in key social institutions such as marriage, reproduction, family structure, and life course. The result is a study that captures both the representation and the lived experience of women’s lives across the span of the Tokugawa period.

主題