Romantic Edoites went both ways

Romantic Edoites went both ways

As in other historical periods, Japanese in the Edo era (1601-1868)
engaged in sex. (We can verify this assertion, needless to say, from
evidence of their continued existence.) Such activities were, as
historian Mikito Ujiie writes in Shincho 45 (September), both
procreative and recreational.

Take the tale of a certain 31-year-old hatamoto (vassal to the
shogun) named Hitoyanagi Naosato, who, a high official named Mizuno
Tamenaga recorded, was stripped of his samurai status for having
procured the services of a prostitute in the Yoshiwara brothel
quarter. The story, which broke in the eleventh lunar month of 1780,
was a bit more complicated than that: It seems Naosato's previous
wife had given him a son, named Ushinosuke, who was 10 years old.
The new wife, whose name and age went unrecorded in this account,
felt little affection for her stepson and abused him severely
(another crime). What's more, when Naosato was absent from Edo on
assignment to the provinces, his wife would invite her cronies into
his compound, turning their residence into an illegal gambling den
(yet another crime). She also engaged in trysts with other samurai,
leading the official recorder Mizuno to accord her the sobriquet
of "inpu" (slut).

The wife, it was alleged, had formerly worked as a freelance
prostitute (as opposed to those who labored under indentured
servitude), and through connivance had somehow managed to get
herself adopted into a samurai family. Armed with this new identity,
she then wed Naosato, and as a noble lady free from suspicion was
able to launder prostitutes' earnings. These funds were used to
build up her husband's status to hatamoto.

But it was the parental abuse meted out to Ushinosuke that led to
her downfall. A servant named Rokubei took pity on the boy and
spilled all to Naosato. When news of the wife's misdeeds reached
Tokugawa Sadanobu --- the Shogun's cousin and chief advisor --- she
was brought before the Edo magistrate and publicly reprimanded.
Rather than beg for mercy, however, she turned to toward the judge,
batted her eyelashes furiously and said, in a voice dripping with
feminine guile, "Oh your honor, it must be the first time you've
ever encountered a woman like me. . ."

Infuriated by this brazen, unrepentant attitude, the judge sentenced
her to exile on one of the Izu Islands.

In the fourth lunar month of 1842, Inaba Masamori, the lord of Yodo,
in Yamashiro province (present-day southeastern Kyoto) a lord named
was stripped of his title as High Commissioner of Temples and
Shrines. Three months later, he was divested of his domain.

Six years earlier, his wife's infidelity had come to light when she
was found murdered in an Osaka storehouse. The investigation led to
a host of other sexual and financial indiscretions and a nationwide
scandal ensued, in which Masamori became known among Japan's nobles
as "Baka-dono" (Lord Fool).

One of the most notorious scandals of the pre-modern era involved
Tokugawa Nariaki, lord of the powerful Mito domain, and a lovely
lassie from Kyoto named Karahashi.

Nariaki was a compulsive womanizer and it wasn't long before
Karahashi found herself with child. Although he was obliged to make
periodic stays in Edo, he began finding all sorts of pretexts to
remain in Mito, giving the Shogunal authorities such excuses as
needing to build up the coastal defenses, conduct military maneuvers
or make long-overdue reforms of the province's administrative
offices.

The problem was that Nariaki's official wife, the daughter of a
powerful lord, realized that his philandering was endangering the
family's position and began to take matters into her own hands.

Sensing the walls closing in, around 1843 Karahashi pleaded illness
and fled to Kyoto. In addition to being stripped of his title,
Nariaki was punished by being forced to make the rounds of temples
in his province and melt down their bells to produce cannonballs.

Perhaps part of the problem was that Japanese of the ruling samurai
class were just getting to know women again; up to 1700 or so,
romance commonly took the form of "shudo" (pederasty --- written
with characters meaning "the way of the masses"). This was no doubt
a legacy of the period of 16th century civil war, when samurai were
in constant battle and had little time for family life. While in
their military encampments older men and adolescent youth would pair
off for romantic trysts.

But after the Tokugawa dynasty consolidated its power, the samurai
became more domesticated and from the late 1600s, authorities in
some provinces began banning the practice of shudo (also referred to
as "nanshoku") due to duels being fought between rivals.

Whatever the reason, historical sources noted a pronounced shift in
samurai interests away from partners of the same sex toward women
from around 1700 AD.

As evidence of this, he cites a story of a love triangle that
appeared in the 16th year of Genroku (1703), in which a gay blade
cheated on his young male lover by cavorting with a prostitute. He
found the experience of passion with a woman so pleasurable he
promptly jilted his colleague, setting up house with the daughter of
a respectable family, who subsequently gave birth to a child. The
young bushi (warrior) became the odd man out and, to add insult to
injury lost his retainer status. Out on the street, he found himself
a ronin (masterless samurai) left to fend for himself. (By Masuo
Kamiyama, People's Pick writer)

August 27, 2005
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