Musui's Story

In the late Edo period, Japanese society was rigidly structured not just in terms of class but also in terms of gender. Musui’s Story provides evidence for the role of women in that strictly patriarchal society both through examples and through omission.

In general, the author mentions women in two ways. First, there are caregivers in the author’s family and others’ families who help him along the way. Second, these are courtesans (sex workers) in the pleasure quarters of Yoshiwara. Indeed, the courtesans are not actually mentioned—only Katsu’s statements about his frequent visits to the red light district to the point of going broke and his enjoyment there. In other words, women appear to exist in Katsu’s society to provide various types of comforts to men.

It is evident that these strictly defined gender roles were fostered from birth. Indeed, this idea was embedded in the custom of adopting a male child into a family that lacked a son to marry the daughter and head the household. This custom was a key part of the author’s biography. Furthermore, the author was born to a concubine who had to hand him over to his father’s wife. Because Heizō Otani’s wife was not the biological mother, the family had to employ a wet nurse.

We also learn about the difference between raising boys and girls from Musui’s Story. Indeed, the author begins his memoir by leaving advice for his descendants and others interested in his life story. He uses himself as a negative example not worth emulating because he admittedly led a life of impropriety. For this reason, Katsu feels well equipped to offer advice on leading a proper life. From the onset, his advice is gendered. Boys are to study various types of military arts and learn how to be the protectors and providers for their families and how to treat their subordinates—wife and children—right. Girls are to address the domestic sphere, including learning how to properly create the distinct samurai haircut.

Women play different but secondary roles in the author’s life. He is fond of his biological father’s wife, who raises him. However, the grandmother in the adoptive family is the focus of much disparagement from the author. He writes that she scolds him incessantly and cooks awfully. Particularly striking are the few references to the author’s wife, Nobuko. First, Katsu only mentions his wedding briefly and displays more interest in the financial aspects of the transaction—his wedding gifts getting him out of debt—rather than building a new family. He also shows little concern for her and his young son, Rintarō, when he runs away from home the second time or when he mismanages the family finances. The only detailed incident featuring Nobuko ends in the author’s casual admission that he beats his wife daily. Therefore, despite being from a reasonably well-positioned family, Nobuko has few choices as a woman in the patriarchal society of late-Edo Japan. Devotion, humility, and loyalty are expected of a good wife.

The conspicuously missing courtesans of the Yoshiwara pleasure district were usually sold into this line of work as children by impoverished families. They learned different arts and observed the adult courtesans. Eventually, their virginity was sold, and they became sex workers themselves. The women of Yoshiwara had different statuses. The high-ranking counterparts not only engaged in sex work but also learned different arts, such as performing tea ceremonies, singing, or writing haikus, so that they could entertain their clients with their beauty and intellect. Despite the elite status, the courtesans were kept hopelessly in debt by various means, such as daily quotas and expensive clothing. Buying oneself out of such debt was incredibly difficult (“Sex and Suffering: The Tragic Life of the Courtesan in Japan's Floating World.” Collectors Weekly, 2022). In his narrative, the author briefly mentions an incident with his landlord Magoichirō Okano buying a courtesan, which whom he was smitten, out of her contract. Katsu, however, found him a more reputable wife.

This subject is explored in contemporary Japanese culture in such films as Mio’s Cookbook (2020), directed by Haruki Kadokawa, an adaptation of a novel by Kaoru Takada. The narrative also takes place in Edo Japan. Two young girls are best friends but are tragically separated. One girl grows up to be a popular, elite courtesan in the Yoshiwara pleasure district. Her friend eventually succeeds in running her own restaurant and vows to buy her friend out of her contract. The film underscores the fact that it would have been very difficult and unusual for a woman to succeed in this way in the strictly patriarchal Japanese society at this time.

In general, Musui’s Story serves as an important historical document of women’s status in Edo-era Japan, by and large, as caretakers of men. Their secondary roles—or outright omission—underscore the struggles that women experienced within a rigid social structure with virtually no social mobility.