著者

谷村 玲子

出版者

法政大学国際日本学研究所

雑誌

国際日本学 = INTERNATIONAL JAPANESE STUDIES (ISSN:18838596)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.13, pp.151-179, 2015-12-22

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Many textbooks for women were published in Edo-period Japan, particularly from the second half of the 17th century. These books covered a broad range of practical matters, as well as Confucian ethics. If we include revisions with the same title, there were over three thousand such books. The readers of these books were of townsman class, wealthy farmer class and lower samurai class. The literacy of women, particularly in kana, seems to have been quite high.Some textbooks recommended incense games (mon-ko) and shell games (kai-awase) as suitable arts for women. However, these games were part of high samurai culture, and girls of the townsman class would not meet them in their ordinary life, unless they were serving domain lords or high ranked samurai.The texts also encouraged girls to learn both literacy arts and performance arts, such as shamisen or chanoyu, Girls who did not have any skill with the shamisen were hardly ever employed by samurai, even though samurai officially regarded it as a “lecherous” instrument. On the other hand, girls who knew the manners of chanoyu as well as the shamisen were treated as better than the kitchen maids at samurai mansions.The goal of girls who served high ranked samurai was to gain the habits of samurai culture. Women serving in the families of high ranked samurai seem to have been an ideal figure for girls across class boundaries. The cultural distinction that women gained by serving at samurai mansions established an ideal image of “Japaneseness” for women.