I did *research* on this and you know, it's that thing were the higher the status of the woman, the less equality she had.
Peasant women could -and did- divorce by moving out. A Buddhist priest could negotiate things, or her family, but she wasn't penalised for it. It was accepted that working class people had to be *compatible* in their marriage- they couldn't afford not to be, when they needed every able-bodied member of the family to survive.
Samurai-class women couldn't, though again... Okay, for a guy to divorce, he just had to state it. there where these things, three-line letters, which was how a wife knew she was divorced. once done, she had not say over it, and not necessarily any forewarning that it was going to come and no way of contesting it. Her only method of obtaining divorce for herself was either to get her husband to agree to it (by negotiating through her family) or by going to divorce temples (themselves pretty unpleasant).
But when people read a bunch of these three-line letters, it sounds like less statements of divorce, and more license to remarry, freely and without hinderence (men could take concubines and first wives were required to raise them as their own). Marriage for the upper-class was about families, money, alliances, and so was divorce. But there was no real prejudice against people who had been divorced.
Going back to peasants, again, no real bias against divorced/remarried and in many cases no real favouring of virginity before marriage. It varies with region, but many places, women were expected to have at least one lover before marriage, and in some communities, "shopping around" before marriage was encouraged by villiage youth organisations.
Which brings me to my favourite bit: Nightplay. yobai 夜這い, "crawling around at night", varied in different regions, but basically meant pairing off after festivals etc. Common peasant practise. It gets better. In the Ryuukyuu Islands (now Okinawa, and where Mugen is from) this had a bunch of different names (môashibi 毛遊び, "play in the fields;" tsujiashibi 辻遊び, "play at the crossroads" and yûashibi 夜遊び, or "night play") and groups of unmarried young people (could be anywhere from 10-80) would gather for competetive singing and dancing, then pair off.
Now Shino's situation was such that she had no family to negotiate for her, and her husband refused to let her go. She was of too high status to just *leave*, though not samurai class, but without the family-protection (and the usual distance from her spouse) that would bring. She was stuffed, basically.
Most of this cribbed from http://www3.la.psu.edu/textbooks/172/ch11_main.htm
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Date: 2004-12-31 03:55 pm (UTC)Peasant women could -and did- divorce by moving out. A Buddhist priest could negotiate things, or her family, but she wasn't penalised for it. It was accepted that working class people had to be *compatible* in their marriage- they couldn't afford not to be, when they needed every able-bodied member of the family to survive.
Samurai-class women couldn't, though again... Okay, for a guy to divorce, he just had to state it. there where these things, three-line letters, which was how a wife knew she was divorced. once done, she had not say over it, and not necessarily any forewarning that it was going to come and no way of contesting it. Her only method of obtaining divorce for herself was either to get her husband to agree to it (by negotiating through her family) or by going to divorce temples (themselves pretty unpleasant).
But when people read a bunch of these three-line letters, it sounds like less statements of divorce, and more license to remarry, freely and without hinderence (men could take concubines and first wives were required to raise them as their own). Marriage for the upper-class was about families, money, alliances, and so was divorce. But there was no real prejudice against people who had been divorced.
Going back to peasants, again, no real bias against divorced/remarried and in many cases no real favouring of virginity before marriage. It varies with region, but many places, women were expected to have at least one lover before marriage, and in some communities, "shopping around" before marriage was encouraged by villiage youth organisations.
Which brings me to my favourite bit: Nightplay.
yobai 夜這い, "crawling around at night", varied in different regions, but basically meant pairing off after festivals etc. Common peasant practise. It gets better. In the Ryuukyuu Islands (now Okinawa, and where Mugen is from) this had a bunch of different names (môashibi 毛遊び, "play in the fields;" tsujiashibi 辻遊び, "play at the crossroads" and yûashibi 夜遊び, or "night play") and groups of unmarried young people (could be anywhere from 10-80) would gather for competetive singing and dancing, then pair off.
Now Shino's situation was such that she had no family to negotiate for her, and her husband refused to let her go. She was of too high status to just *leave*, though not samurai class, but without the family-protection (and the usual distance from her spouse) that would bring. She was stuffed, basically.
Most of this cribbed from http://www3.la.psu.edu/textbooks/172/ch11_main.htm