Kamakura to Muromachi: Elite Women's Shifting Influence
Further Thoughts
Women of medieval Japan in modern thought are often wrongly thought of as powerless and oppressed. While obviously not equal, women had surprising amount of sway and power among the elite class. On the other hand, the eras leading up to medieval Japan may not have been so free as previously thought. While it is still questionable when “patriarchy” began in Japan, there is no way to simply class women as oppressed in either Muromachi or Kamakura periods. The extent of their influence seemed to be often overlooked. While not much new creative and literary writing was done in the medieval periods creative linguistic developments occurred such as nyobo-kotoba. With the disappearance of personal journals, maybe things like nyobo-kotoba helped to exercise women’s literary creativities as well as carve out for themselves a private space separate from men. Further research into women’s language and writing might be interesting in that regard. Regardless, large social changes occurred between Kamakura to Muromachi that seem to be due to the systematization of things such as marriage and the reevaluation of women and their societal role. With the formation of as the standard practice for almost all forms of management it is little surprise that such sweeping changes began occurring. Further with the need for legitimacy in lineages and households, the consolidation of power became ever important thus pushing a streamlined inheritance and new focus on married couples rather than their parents. The Muromachi period seemed to be a time in which many informal practices of Kamkakura began to see organization and standardization. Further with the standardization came a reevaluation of women, their bodies and social roles moving them into a more confined box of what a women should be and what she should be allowed to do, but not necessarily demoting her place in society.
Image Credit:
Integrated Collections Database of the National Museums, Japan
https://colbase.nich.go.jp/collection_items/tnm/A-12091?locale=en
Bibliography
Amino, Yoshihiko, et al. “Concerning Women.” Rethinking Japanese History, Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2012, pp. 217–244.
Amino, Yoshihiko, et al. “On Writing.” Rethinking Japanese History, Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2012, pp. 130–137.
Endō, Orie. “Women's Language in the Kamakura and Muromachi Periods:
Actualization of Gendered Language Differences.” A Cultural History of Japanese Women's Language, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2006, pp. 23–39.
Goto, Michiko. “The Lives and Roles of Women of Various Classes in the ie of Late Medieval Japan.” International Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, 2006, pp. 183–210., https://doi.org/10.1017/s1479591406000325.
Haruko, Wakita, and David P. Phillips. “Women and the Creation of the ‘ie’ in Japan: An Overview from the Medieval Period to the Present.” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal. English Supplement, no. 4, 1993, pp. 83–105. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42772054. Accessed 3 Jun. 2022.
Haruko, Wakita. “The Formation of the Ie” Women in Medieval Japan: Motherhood, Household Management and Sexuality, Monash Asia Institute, Clayton, 2006, pp. 17–39.
Haruko, Wakita. “Changing Views on Women in Medieval Japan.” Women in Medieval Japan: Motherhood, Household Management and Sexuality, Monash Asia Institute, Clayton, 2006, pp. 48–69.
Haruko, Wakita. “Changing Gender Roles for Medieval Japanese Woman: Court Attendant, Vendor and Nun.” Women in Medieval Japan: Motherhood, Household Management and Sexuality, Monash Asia Institute, Clayton, 2006, pp. 71-121
Tonomura Hitomi. "Re-envisioning Women in the post-Kamakura Age." in The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World: Courtiers, Clerics, Warriors, and Peasants in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Jeffrey P. Mass, pp. 138–169. Stanford University Press, 1998.
Tonomura, Hitomi. “Women and Inheritance in Japan’s Early Warrior Society.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 32, no. 3, 1990, pp. 592–623. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/179066. Accessed 21 May 2022.