Problem of Women in Early Modern Japan

Early modern Japan was a military-bureaucratic state governed by patriarchal and patrilineal principles and laws. During this time, however, women had considerable power to directly affect social structure, political practice, and economic production. This book explores the dynamic nature of Japanese women's lives during the early modern era.

List of contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1. Filial Piety
2. Self-Cultivation
3. Marriage
4. Motherhood
5. Succession
6. Retirement
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Marcia Yonemoto is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Colorado Boulder and author of Mapping Early Modern Japan: Space, Place, and Culture in the Tokugawa Period (1603–1868).

Summary

Early modern Japan was a military-bureaucratic state governed by patriarchal and patrilineal principles and laws. During this time, however, women had considerable power to directly affect social structure, political practice, and economic production. This apparent contradiction between official norms and experienced realities lies at the heart of The Problem of Women in Early Modern Japan. Examining prescriptive literature and instructional manuals for women—as well as diaries, memoirs, and letters written by and about individual women from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century—Marcia Yonemoto explores the dynamic nature of Japanese women’s lives during the early modern era.

Additional text

"Yonemoto’s many insights into her materials and her skillfully constructed arguments provide ample evidence that she has thought long and hard about the problem of women in early modern Japan... I urge my friends and colleagues in Japanese history to read this book, to recommend it to their students, and to incorporate into their work its message regarding the centrality of women to an understanding of history."

Product details

• Authors: Marcia Yonemoto, Yonemoto Marcia
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.2016
• EAN: 9780520292000
• ISBN: 978-0-520-29200-0
• No. of pages: 304
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 235 mm x 25 mm
• Series: Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes; Asia: Local Studies / Global T; Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes
• Subjects: Education and learning > Teaching preparation > Vocational needs; Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Japan, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Asia / Japan, HISTORY / Women, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Social and cultural history, Asian History, Gender studies: women, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, Gender studies: women and girls, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, c 1500 to c 1600, C 1600 To C 1700