Episode 356 – Women in Edo Japan

September 18, 2020

This week: how do historians learn about the lives of everyday people? Let’s take a look at how it’s done by thinking about a group of people often overlooked in histories of the Edo period even though they made up half the population: women.

Sources

Yonemoto, Marcia. The Problem of Women in Early Modern Japan.

Tsunoda, Ryusaku, et al., eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition.

This awesome translation project for the Nansou Satomi Hakkenden.

Images

Print of Lady Fuse from the Nansou Satomi Hakkenden saving one of the characters from a thunderbolt (spoilers: her spirit does come back).
The yashiki (mansion) of Marugame domain in Edo where Inoue Tsujo lived for eight years.
Lady Tokiwa (Tokiwa Gozen) as depicted by Kuniyoshi.
Another image of Lady Fuse, this time with the dog.
A memorial statue for Inoue Tsujo in her home town in Shikoku. She remained relatively famous after her time thanks to her scholarly attainments, compared to the fairly obscure Ito Maki.