Experts cast light on female

empowerment in Edo Period

BY YUMI WIJERS-HASEGAWA
JUN 19, 2004

Many people might believe that Japanese women centuries ago had fewer rights
than the women of today.
But scholars who have extensively studied kakekomidera, the so-called divorce
temples of the Edo Period (1603-1868), argue that women in those days were
actually better off.
Many believe kakekomidera were where poor, distressed wives sought refuge
until they were finally granted a divorce said Tadashi Takagi, professor of law at
Senshu University in Tokyo. But there is evidence that shrewd women also used
the system to their advantage.
There were two temples that the Tokugawa shogunate officially recognized as
kakekomidera a term that literally means temples to run into for refuge
although other institutions that also had authority over husbands, such as
samurai residences, could also fulfill this role in some parts of Japan.
One was Mantokuji Temple in the town of Ojima, Gunma Prefecture, while the
other was Tokeiji Temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Takagi, who has studied the topic for more than 30 years, said that although the
flight to freedom of many wives was prompted by cheating or abusive husbands,
there were also women who sought divorce so they could then marry their lovers.
There was also a case where a woman told a kakekomidera that her husband was
trying to force her into prostitution, but records showed she had earlier run off
with a lover, taking her husbands money evidence showing she was not simply
a victim, he said.

In 1822, French novelist Stendhal dreamt about the existence of such an asylum
for women in his work De lAmour. He would have been surprised if he knew it
existed in such a remote Asian country at the time.
Evidence of the strong position of women in the Edo Period can also be seen in
mikudarihan, letters of 3 1/2 lines sent by men to their wives declaring that they
would divorce them, he said.
As only men wrote them, they were long viewed as a symbol of male tyranny,
Takagi said. But it was in fact more an obligation than a right.
Takagi said that there were cases in which men who did not want a separation
were forced to pen the letters, such as when a wifes wealthy parents wanted to
get rid of a man who had married into the family.
And while womens extramarital affairs were punishable by death, such
executions hardly ever took place, apparently due to factors such as their
economic power and the pragmatic view of divorce held by the people at the time.
Because many women had considerable economic strength as weavers, spinners
or papermakers, they had lots of marriage offers even after a divorce, marrying
three, four or even five times, according to Takagi. There was no stigma like
today, where divorced women are sometimes seen as damaged goods.
The divorce rate in the early Meiji Period (1868-1912) stood at 3.39 per 1,000
people, according to Takagi. In 2003, the figure stood at 2.25, according to
Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry statistics.
Ever pragmatists, men in the Edo Period often pretended not to notice their
wives affairs, or simply settled things with cash from their lovers, according to
Takagi.
Takagi observed that people today harbor the impression that Edo Period women
were terribly oppressed because the Meiji Period that followed was ruled by a very
chauvinistic regime.
For the Meiji government, it was efficient to keep women at home while fully
utilizing the men for their militarist and early capitalist policies. And because the

Edo Period precedes that, people automatically assume it was even more so,
according to Takagi.
Takagi is currently the only kakekomidera researcher in Japan. But more scholars
abroad study the issue, such as Diana E. Wright, associate professor of Japanese
history at Western Washington University.
Recently in Tokyo to attend a meeting of the Japan Society for Comparative
Family History, Wright said that while her students are fascinated by the topic, it
is difficult to get them off the stereotype of the poor, subservient Japanese
woman.
Wright said she believes Edo women were happier than their Western
counterparts and perhaps even happier than divorced women today.
In the West at the time, Catholics could not divorce, and although Protestants
could, divorced women had no social support, she said.
But in Edo, women who were active wage laborers had monetary worth to their
families and had their support. Why would the family put up with the abuse of
their daughters, who can come home and work with them?
They may even have been in a better position than todays divorced women in
Japan and the United States, where welfare support is insufficient while the
number of deadbeat husbands is very high, she claimed