The Invisible Woman – Life as a Samurai’s Wife - diaries from Hirata Orise from Akita in Japan under Shogunate rule

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Solitude more as a role than a feeling

At dawn, Hirata Orise’s home was bathed in twilight—the warmth of the fire had yet to dispel the chill of the night, and the only sound was the quiet crackle of incense at the butsudan—the family altar, which, like the rest of the house, was under her care. Orise dipped her brush into ink, observing her reflection on the surface of the water in the small bowl, as if making sure she hadn’t vanished yet—that she was, despite everything, still visible. And she began to write. Unhurriedly, in beautiful calligraphy, which was her act of resistance against the erasure of her existence. Thanks to a few dried ume plums in a dish beside her, she could still sense the scent of the city—Edo, which she had left behind when she moved to the rural Akita, to her husband’s family. “I cannot obtain textbooks for girls,” she noted. “There are none here. A soul without study withers.” She had become a specialist in waiting. She waited for her husband to return from a visit to the daimyo’s castle. She waited for a letter—a reply from her stepdaughter in Edo. For permission to walk alone to the temple. For approval to go to the market with a servant. In Akita, the rain was rough and heavy. She missed the city rain, which flowed down rooftops like a whisper. A small drop of ink fell beside a kanji character, creating a little blot and making it imperfect. “Good!” Let it remain that way, as a sign that she had not yet, despite everything, disappeared.

Hirata Orise’s diaries are an exceptionally valuable source of knowledge about the life of women in samurai households during the shogunate, precisely because Orise had not always belonged to the samurai class. Born the daughter of a tofu maker, she had for years lived as a woman of the merchant class—active, present, independent. But when she married Hirata Atsutane, a samurai scholar, she was formally “adopted” into a samurai family—not out of love, but from the necessity of propriety. This symbolic entrance into the world of the samurai completely changed the rest of her life. Her writings are a subtle chronicle of life lived in the shadow of an ethos that didn’t even notice her, though it stood upon her shoulders. Through her words, we gain an invaluable testimony: of what life in a samurai household was truly like for a woman, and how deep the chasm was between that life and many of our modern-day assumptions.

For who, in fact, was the wife of a samurai? Not a warrior on the battlefield (though such women did exist: onna bugeisha / musha), but one who oversaw the continuation of the lineage; maintained household chronicles; watched over the ancestral altar; made decisions about adopting an heir; ensured the house was always prepared to receive important, unannounced guests; and that her husband was always properly dressed and able to represent the family with dignity. In genealogies (kafu), she was recorded only as “the daughter of so-and-so,” or “the wife of such-and-such,” but without her, there could be no such “so-and-so.” Her life was full of rituals and rigor, but also hidden power, expressed through care, organization, silent presence. She was expected to practice discretion verging on invisibility. And perhaps that is why—today, as the world begins to listen again to voices long silenced—Orise’s letters resonate so deeply. They teach of astonishing inner discipline and psychological resilience. Although at times, between one ritual and another, one can see a suggestion… a fleeting glance full of… longing?

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A Day in the Life of a Samurai’s Wife

Mornings in Akita awoke hesitantly, as if reluctant to disturb the silence that had lingered over this part of the town for weeks. Behind a wooden screen shielding the room from the garden, Orise sat on her knees, adjusting the fold of her kimono. The scent of pine wood and sencha tea—boiled by the maid at dawn—lingered in the air. Through the thin paper shōji, pale rays of winter sunlight filtered in—light that did not warm. Akita was colder, harsher than Edo. Even the light here seemed more restrained.

She heard the patter of the maid’s clogs on the outer veranda and the creaking of wood as someone in the neighboring house closed a sliding door. The same sounds, every day the same—rhythmic, familiar like the beating of a heart. Orise did not like them, but she had learned to treat them as signs that the day had begun. The absence of sound would have been more unsettling.

Her husband, Hirata Atsutane, had left yesterday at dawn to visit a local official, and she—as always—remained. She guarded the house. She kept watch. She waited. Waiting was her specialty. She waited for news from Edo, for a letter from her stepdaughter, for permission to take a walk alone to the temple. She even waited for the rain—for only then did she feel nature spoke to her in the same language it once had, back in the city. In Edo, the rain smelled different.

The room was in order. On the low table lay a writing set—the ink not yet ground on the stone, the brush placed neatly. Beside it—a modest dish of mandarins. She had peeled one the evening before and carefully laid the peel on the windowsill—the scent meant to remind her of holidays past, when she still visited friends and shared sake, laughing at things that now could no longer be spoken aloud.

She reached for the brush. In letters, she could be herself. She did not have to remain silent. She wrote to her stepdaughter in Edo, using precise, elegant calligraphy that was her personal act of resistance against disappearing. The ink absorbed her thoughts. “Yesterday, I dreamed of your mother. We sat together by the fire. She told me she missed the scent of apricots. Are they already blooming in your garden?”

She paused. A drop of ink fell from the tip of the brush, smudging a character. No matter. She didn’t like perfect characters—the blot would be her personal mark of emotional authenticity. She gazed through the shōji at the graying sky. In her thoughts, she returned to the moment she arrived in Akita—not as a wife, but almost as a servant. As the daughter of a provincial tofu maker, she had been “adopted” by an influential patron so she would be a suitable match for her samurai husband. She never forgot that silence at the table when one of the cousins said, “Don’t go outside. It’s improper.”

That day taught her everything. To remain silent. To smile when she had no strength. To make sure the tea tasted just right, that her husband’s kimono had not the slightest crease, that conversation with an unexpected guest did not betray her fatigue. Day after day, in the shadow of the sword that hung in the alcove, Orise cultivated a quiet, feminine kind of courage.

She would do it again today. She would compose a letter. She would instruct the maid to pack dried fruits for shipment. She would sew a button on her husband’s ceremonial attire. And when dusk came and all fell silent, she would light a single oil lamp and write down who visited the house, what was discussed, what Atsutane ate. The journal was her responsibility—and her only way of remaining “visible”…?

She was a samurai’s wife. But she was also something more. A memory. A guardian. A shadow, without which light would have no meaning.

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The Voice of Orise: Solitude, Frustration, Tenderness, the Everyday

Hirata Orise was not born into the samurai class. Her father made tofu in a small provincial town, and she herself knew the taste of work, laughter, and independence long before she donned the modest, ceremonial kimono. When, in 1818, she married Hirata Atsutane—a kokugaku scholar, thinker, and aspiring samurai—she left her family home and moved to Edo, where life pulsed with the rhythm of temple bells, festivals, shops, teahouses, and sake-fueled conversations. There, she had a circle of friends, the company of her stepdaughter, outings to temples, the admiration of cherry blossoms in Ueno, and laughter. She was part of the city, part of life.

Everything changed in 1841, when her husband fell out of favor with the authorities and was exiled to his native Akita. Orise was not obliged to accompany him. And yet, she did. Out of loyalty, out of love, out of a sense of duty—it’s hard today to separate one from the other. Together with Atsutane, they first lived with his relatives—samurai of higher rank, who treated her with suspicion and coldness. She was ordered not to leave the estate without a valid reason. She could not do the shopping—that was the servant’s task, who often brought back things she hadn’t asked for. Even later, when they finally had their own modest quarters, she was still bound to complete silence—a discretion bordering on invisibility.

It was then that Orise began to write letters.

They were not dry reports. They were long, thoughtful, vivid messages to her stepdaughter, to her family, to the loved ones she had left behind in Edo—fragments of her thoughts, moods, desires, and at the same time, detailed chronicles of life on the periphery. She described how she cooked for Atsutane, because he disliked food prepared by the servants. How she sewed his ceremonial kimono and asked her family to send appropriate fabrics from the city. How she received guests on his behalf, recording their names, conversations, and the dates in the journal she was required to keep with the utmost care. She also wrote of longing—quiet, stubborn, devoid of pathos, but immensely persistent.

In one letter, she mentions how much she misses books. She asks for textbooks for girls, because there are none in Akita, and she wants to pass something on to younger women. She understood that knowledge, words—even the humblest—could be a shield. Writing was, for her, resistance against disappearance—proof that she existed, that she thought, that she felt. Her calligraphy—gentle, attentive—was like breath on paper. A true presence in a world that demanded her to be a shadow.

In Akita, she was lonely. She missed conversation, the bustle of Edo, the ability to take a walk without needing to justify it. She felt frustration when she could not obtain the proper spices, when her requests were brushed aside, when she was dependent on others. And yet, bitterness does not seep through these letters. What emerges instead is tenderness—toward her stepdaughter, toward her husband, toward those few moments she could keep for herself. Tenderness that was not weakness, but strength. Tenderness that was her version of loyalty—quiet, undramatic, everyday.

Orise’s love for Atsutane was not romantic in the Western sense. It was a deep bond grounded in the sharing of fate. When he wrote treatises, she ensured he had fresh ink. When he went to officials, she watched over the home, the guests, the memory. She was his shadow, but also his pillar. Without her, his life in Akita could not have functioned. And yet history has remembered primarily him.

Orise died in 1846, twenty-two years before the end of the Tokugawa era. Her letters survived. They are not loud, not revolutionary. But they are true. They are the record of a woman’s existence that needed no sword to be worthy of remembrance. Let us now see what they can teach us about the lives of women in the samurai class during the Edo period.

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Who was a samurai’s wife?

In the hierarchical structure of Tokugawa society, where every person had a designated place like a pawn in a game of go, the wife of a samurai occupied a peculiar position—proud and restricted, privileged and at the same time almost invisible. Surrounded by honor, and yet often confined within the four walls of her household. She lived not so much on the stage of public life, but behind its curtains—yet without her presence, the entire structure of the family could collapse.

Unlike peasant women (nōfu no onna), who worked in the fields from dawn to dusk with hands submerged in the mud of rice paddies, or merchant-class women (chōnin no onna), who ran family shops, sold tea, wove silk, or baked red bean confections, the wife of a samurai lived in a closed world, full of rules, silence, and ceremonial obligations. Merchant daughters could go to the market, haggle with suppliers, stroll through temple festivals, or attend performances by street entertainers. The wife of a samurai could not leave the house alone—if she did go out, it was only in a palanquin (norimono) and always accompanied, most often by a maid.

Even her clothing reflected this difference: the peasant woman wore a simple cotton katabira, and her face was tanned from working in the sun. The city woman—wealthy or not—could wear colorful komon and proudly display elaborate hairstyles with ornaments made, for example, of tortoiseshell. Meanwhile, the samurai wife concealed her hands in her sleeves and covered her mouth with a fan, learning that the less she was seen, the greater her majesty.

Though invisible to the world, she was the heart of the household—its memory, its ritual, its endurance. In the genealogies (kafu) compiled by the daimyō, women did not appear as individuals, but as “daughters of so-and-so,” “wives of so-and-so,” yet without them, there could be no marriage, no adoption of an heir, no continuity of the lineage. It was women like Hirata Orise who kept the hearth burning, sent letters to stepdaughters, meticulously maintained household chronicles, and ensured that the offerings before the butsudan (the domestic Buddhist altar) had the proper scent and shape.

But what did it mean to be the wife of a warrior when war had long since passed? For the role and life of a samurai’s wife during the Kamakura or Muromachi periods—when continuous wars raged between samurai clans—was entirely different (a subject certainly worth a separate article). It was something else entirely during the peaceful Tokugawa period. What was the life of women from the samurai class like when Sengoku—the era of blood and fire—was already just a tale passed down by elders at the fire, and the samurai had become a bureaucrat, a calligraphy teacher, a guardian of social order? In the Edo period (1603–1868), which brought peace, samurai lived more off stipends (chigyō) paid by their lords than by the sword. Many supplemented their income by making cricket cages or writing treatises—like Atsutane, Orise’s husband.

A woman from a samurai family, though she did not wear armor, also bore the weight of status. It was said that she should know naginata-jutsu—the art of fighting with the long-bladed spear, whose symbolic presence in her room was meant to remind others of her courage and readiness to defend the household. In reality—as one woman from Mito confessed—by the 19th century, few still knew how to fight. The naginata had become more a symbol than a weapon—like a medal not earned but inherited. In truth, the same applied to men and their katana, perhaps just on a smaller scale.

They were at once indispensable and dispensable. A man without a wife could not establish an independent household (ie), and thus could not be a full-fledged member of the samurai community. A woman was necessary for a man to become the “head of the family.” And yet, if he was poor, he often had to choose: a servant or a wife—because he could not afford both. In extreme cases, which rightly shock us today, a woman was even referred to as a “borrowed womb”—a tool for extending the lineage.

But in practice, these women did far more than bear children. They taught etiquette, ensured their husbands looked presentable during audiences, mended kimono, sewed ceremonial obi sashes, cooked dishes that would not offend refined palates, managed relations with extended family, arranged gifts, wrote letters, tended the ill. And they endured—lonely, excluded from public life, yet responsible for ensuring that the man who wore two swords (The Etiquette of Samurai Weaponry – When the Steel of the Katana and a Subtle Gesture Spoke in Silence) did not forget who he was.

In a society governed by the principles of giri (duty) and on (gratitude), the samurai woman was the living embodiment of both. She was not the heroine of the tale, but without her, no tale could begin. She was like ink on tracing paper—not visible by itself, but making everything else permanent.

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Home, Ritual, Silence – The Everyday

In the Edo period, the samurai household (buke-yashiki) was a closed world, but not an empty one. In its quiet space, behind the sliding shōji doors, beneath the dim glow of an oil lamp, life unfolded with duty, ritual, and constant vigilance. For a samurai’s wife, this was a world with clearly defined boundaries—both physical and social.

A woman in a samurai family could not leave the house of her own will. If she had to go to a temple or visit relatives for a holiday, she traveled in a norimono—a palanquin—accompanied by a servant or a male family member. Even shopping—mundane and everyday—was not her domain. In a letter, Hirata Orise laments that her servant was unable to bring back the right ingredients from the market, but she had no right to do it herself. “I have no access to what I know and choose myself. The taste of Edo is unreachable here,” she wrote to her stepdaughter.

She was not allowed to cross the threshold of the house without a reviewed and approved need, yet within those walls lay the full scope of her responsibility. She oversaw the morning schedule—assigned the preparation of asa-gohan (breakfast), checked whether the kitchen served miso soup and takuan pickled radish with proper delicacy. Sometimes, she cooked herself, because—as Orise wrote—“Atsutane cannot stand excess salt. He likes when the kombu broth whispers of the sea.”

Sewing and garment care also rested on her shoulders. A samurai’s kimono had to be impeccable, especially during an audience with a local official or a ceremony at the castle. Orise recalls how she consulted her husband’s sister on the details of his attire for a visit to the daimyō. A missing embroidery or a shade of obi that was too dark could be interpreted as a sign of disrespect toward one’s status—and she would be held accountable. In a samurai house, a woman did not simply mend—she shaped the representative appearance of the entire family.

A great responsibility of the wife was maintaining the family journal (nikki), in which not only events but also visits, dates of audiences, and contents of important conversations were recorded. This journal was not merely a household chronicle—it was also a tool for legitimizing the family in the eyes of the authorities. Orise meticulously recorded her husband’s activities: “Today, a samurai of the Satō family visited us, stayed for tea, and mentioned a journey to Morioka. Atsutane read him excerpts from his new treatise.” She was the eyes and ears of the house—keenly attentive, though invisible.

When Atsutane went to offices, temples, or visited his students, Orise acted as his representative. She could not leave, but she could receive guests, serve them tea, conduct conversation according to etiquette, and above all—ensure the home was ready for any visit, at any time. Guests could arrive unannounced—since there were no telephones—and a hostess’s obligation to uphold decorum allowed no exceptions, regardless of the hour. Thus, any moment could suddenly become a formal reception—and Orise, like other women of her position, had to be perpetually prepared.

Alongside physical duties, there was the spiritual realm—the ritualistic daily life that included care of the butsudan, the altar on which ancestral tablets rested. Each morning, she lit incense, offered rice or fruit, and spoke words of prayer. This gesture was not an empty tradition—it was an act of continuity. Only the wife had the right to care for the ihai—the name tablets of the deceased. Only she could perform the ritual of memory that made the ie a living entity across generations.

It was also the woman who managed the rituals of gift-giving and exchange—twice a year, the samurai household sent gifts to relatives, patrons, and in-laws. It was the women who wrapped tea, dried fruits, and fabric pieces in decorative washi paper, placed them in lacquered boxes, and recorded who received what, and what was sent in return. In her letters, Orise regularly asked for goods from Edo—not for herself, but for Atsutane’s extended family, who were owed something small, something thoughtful, something that cemented bonds.

Thus, the home was not so much a place of confinement as a stage of duty. Every gesture—from the placement of dishes to the phrasing of a letter—was part of a quiet, precise ceremonial of continuity. In an era when a samurai rarely had the chance to prove his courage on the battlefield, it was the woman who made his life something worth defending.

In silence and shadow, between the kitchen and the altar, between the journal and the tea box, the woman of a samurai household built the endurance of the family line. Without leaving the house—she moved its heart.

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義理 (giri) – Duty Above Love

In Hirata Orise’s letters to her stepdaughter, one can feel a subtle line of tension—not between those who love each other, but between a person and an institution, between emotion and form, between life’s volatility and what must endure. She was the wife of a man she loved—but even more so, she was part of an ie, a lineage that had to exist regardless of mood, fortune, or whether the heart longed for closeness or solitude.

In Edo-period Japan, marriage was rarely an intimate union between two individuals (at least not in the samurai class). More often, it was a precisely planned move in a game where the stakes were stability and power. A samurai could not marry a woman from outside his class without official approval and often—as in Orise’s case—the bride-to-be had to first be formally adopted into another samurai family so that her origins would not tarnish her future husband’s reputation. Orise, the daughter of a master tofu maker, was adopted into the family of an influential rural official before the marriage—not to change her life, but to preserve Atsutane’s status.

In this world, a woman was not only the mother of children, but the mother of the lineage, even if she never bore a son. She was the one who had to know which family lines were worth uniting. She was the one who conducted discussions with matchmakers (nakōdo), traced cousinly ties, searched for a suitable successor—a son-in-law who would be adopted as a muko-yōshi and take on the family name and legacy. When the husband died, it was the widow who became the guardian of memory and continuity.

In samurai households, where strict primogeniture was practiced (meaning everything passed to the eldest son), the absence of a son did not necessarily mean the end of a lineage—as long as there was a woman who could lead the family through the threshold of death. The widow not only managed the house after the husband’s passing, but made decisions on his behalf, chose adoptive heirs, and continued the ancestral rituals. She—not an official, not a cousin—often decided who would become the next head of the family. In this way, she became more than a wife—she was like the foundation for the next floor of the house, built of names and merit.

In one of her letters, Orise speaks of concern for succession: that Nobutane, her grandson, still had no heir, that he was frail, that reason and calm were needed to make a decision. Her words are not emotional, but full of attentiveness and responsibility. She already knew that if the Hirata line were to endure, it would not be through Atsutane’s battles or literature, but through the decisions of women: whispered over tea, hidden in letters, signed when no one was looking.

Love in this world had a different face. It was not rebellion against duty—it was embedded within it but had to fit inside its frame. Orise loved Atsutane not only as a husband, but as the central point of a structure of which she was the bedrock. Her affection was not expressed in the words “I love you,” but in care, in strategy, in loyalty that did not seek reciprocation—only survival.

The widow in a samurai family was not helpless or left alone—she was the central pillar in the space left by the man. Her presence did not vanish—it became even more visible, though still silent. In a culture that taught a woman should be like a shadow—it was that very shadow that shielded the past, the future, and the present of the ie.

Perhaps the fullest image of this strength is the fact that it was not the sons, but the women of the Hirata family who, for decades, preserved the memory of Atsutane—his legacy, his students, his lineage. Quietly, wisely, effectively. Just as samurai women had done for generations.

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What is the life of an invisible shadow and pillar?

In the letters of Hirata Orise, there is no outcry, no explosion of rebellion, no piercing lament. And yet, between the carefully calligraphed characters, something deeper flickers: the persistent presence of a woman who did not vanish, even though everything around her demanded she become invisible.

The life of a samurai’s wife—like Orise’s life—unfolded under constant and judging observation: by her husband’s relatives, household members, neighbors, society. Every gesture, every word, even every decision about what to cook and when to write a letter was immersed in a dense network of expectations. A woman of that era was to be quiet, obedient, modest, attentive—but at the same time effective, representative, responsible for the continuity of the family. Today’s psychologists might describe this as a high level of internalized social norms—a woman required no external oversight, for the norms that controlled her lived within her. Others’ expectations became her identity and filled her completely. Although... perhaps not entirely?

In one of her letters, Orise writes that her stepdaughter should learn household management because “there is nothing more troubling for a woman than being helpless in the everyday.” These are not the words of a resigned servant, but of someone deeply aware of responsibility—and solitude. Her psychological world was built upon the sense of giri (義理)—a duty not founded in emotion, but in loyalty to structure and principle. And that structure said: be a shadow, but one that gives coolness, protection, and continuity.

And in that role emerge longing, frustration, pride, calm, and melancholy—feelings that today we might associate with “ambivalent dependence” or “frozen emotionality.” Orise’s longing for Edo—for the life where she could walk, visit temples, laugh with relatives—was not expressed directly, but it spread into the margins of her letters. She wrote of the lack of books, of how in Akita “there are no texts for girls,” and that “a soul without literature is like a pond without water.” This short, seemingly neutral sentence reveals a spiritual hunger.

Frustration, on the other hand, revealed itself in subtle remarks: “The servant doesn’t know the proper type of tea,” or “The kimono that arrives is too dark, too solemn—it doesn’t suit my husband.” Beneath the surface—impatience. But also pride. When Orise mentions that she sewed the ceremonial sash for Atsutane’s audience herself, one senses joy not from recognition, but from a sense of competence. She could. She knew. She understood what was needed. In a world that denied women a voice, she was the one who knew.

And yet all of this was cloaked in melancholy—a state we might today liken to gentle existential depression, born from the tension between one’s inner life and one’s outer role. Orise had no place to express doubt or sadness—so she conveyed them through sensory details: she missed the smells of Edo, the right taste of soup, conversation. It was the loss of the everyday world—she felt “uprooted.”

And still—she endured. In silence, in her letters, in her journal. She endured in loyalty that solitude could not undo. She endured because she was needed, even if no one ever told her so.

The image of the “charming Japanese woman”—smiling, polite, delicate—is an aesthetic projection, not a psychological truth. Orise, like many women of her era, was a powerful pillar of her household clothed in fine silk. Her softness was a choice, not a weakness. Her silence was an act—not an absence of voice, but a deliberate way of using it.

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The Legacy of the Invisible

From the women of the samurai class, no swords, regalia, or monuments remain. No torii gates were raised in their honor, no history books chronicled their names, no battle halls remembered them. And yet their legacy endured—not as triumph, but as a silence that never faded.

What remained were letters—like those written by Hirata Orise—which carried through generations more than words: a posture, a tone, an inner discipline. What remained were entries in family journals, neat script from a woman’s hand, where names, visits, and duties blended with the quiet voice of story. What remained were rituals—like the daily lighting of incense before the butsudan, like the preparation of a tea box as a summer gift for a cousin from another branch of the family. In these gestures—repeated by daughters, daughters-in-law, granddaughters—there lived something no one ever named as heroism.

The influence of these women was intimate, diffused, and yet powerful. They shaped the emotional world of the family, set the tone for childrearing, taught what it meant to save face, to forgive without weakness, to fall silent not out of submission, but from strength.

Only today are we beginning to reclaim their voices. Newly rediscovered letters, diaries, domestic records—like those kept by Orise—reveal the psychological and spiritual worlds of women who for centuries endured in the shadow of the sword’s ethos. Their story is beginning to return—not as a footnote to male narratives, but as a fully valid current of history. They were not merely wives of warriors—they were warriors of another front, equally essential, masters of survival in a world that gave them no battlefield and yet demanded they fight one every day.

Samurai womanhood endured as an archetype of loyalty without voice, strength without violence, presence without recognition. There is something deeply modern in it: an echo of women today who carry the weight of structures that do not see them, who care for the world though they are absent from lists of the celebrated.

Was the life of a samurai woman a cage? From today’s perspective—yes. But it was a cage in which gardens grew, despite captivity. A cage in which souls were tempered. It was a form—rigid, confining—but within it, samurai women carved out their strength: in patience, in ritual, in tenderness toward the everyday. Still—it was a cage.

Their story tells us that the world does not rest on the shoulders of those who charge with swords in hand, but on those who know how to endure. Without applause, without weapons, without legend. And yet—unconquered.

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A Final Note

When reading about the lives of Japanese women in samurai households, it's easy to fall into the trap of a quick judgment: an oppressive, patriarchal Japan. And of course, that is not untrue — many of these women did indeed live within rigid rules, under constant surveillance, with limited ability to decide for themselves. But before we hastily criticize Japanese culture — or any culture, for that matter — it's worth asking a different question: what were women’s lives like in our own culture at the same time? The mind can sometimes mislead us — we tend to compare the lives of Tokugawa-era women with the lives of women in contemporary Europe. And yet, if we are to compare at all, we should do so with Poland of the noble class, of the same historical period.

During the Edo period, even women from lower classes in Japan were taught to read and write. They attended terakoya schools, knew poetry, practiced calligraphy, understood the meditative aspects of the tea ceremony, could distinguish incense fragrances, and recite classical verses. They wrote letters, kept diaries, had access to literature. At the same time, the average woman in noble Poland was illiterate — not by choice, of course. And not just Polish women — for most women in Europe, taking part in cultural life, let alone expressing themselves in writing, was a luxury beyond reach. In Japan, even a townswoman with no aristocratic lineage could have a cup of sake with a friend in a teahouse, go to the kabuki theater, or try a new dish from a street stall.

Even samurai women, so deeply bound to etiquette and duty, were taught the basics of martial arts — at least symbolically — and knew how to wield a naginata. Japanese history preserves the names of women who commanded troops (Tsuruhime), fought in battle (Tomoe Gozen), engaged in politics (like Hōjō Masako), or led female defense brigades (Joshitai Takeko). Can we say the same of the history of Polish women, or more broadly, of European women during the age of the nobility? Before we draw final conclusions, perhaps we should look deeper — and not only at Japan. Sometimes, what we perceive as "freedom" in our own culture turns out to have been a myth that excluded women. This is not to say that women in Japan lived in freedom. It means that elsewhere in the world, they often faced similar limitations — though not always, and not everywhere, of course.

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Women of the Yakuza – Silently Bearing the Scars on Their Bodies and Hearts

The Female Samurai Unit Jōshitai – The Ultimate Determination of Fighting Mothers and Sisters

The Mountain Witch Yamanba – Feminine Wildness That Terrified the Patriarchal Men of Traditional Japan

The Unyielding Courage of Higuchi Ichiyo: A Solitary Rebellion Against the Oppression of Women in Japan

The Female Body as a Battlefield – Dark Eroguro and Traditional Nihonga in the Works of Fuyuko Matsui