February 7, 2023
The following is from a column by Seki Hei published in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine Hanada.
As this chapter demonstrates so clearly, the history of Japan should come as a great surprise to those at the United Nations who know remarkably little about this country and yet presume to pass judgment on it.
It is also something that people around the world must know, especially those who have placed unquestioning faith in the United Nations while simply accepting what China and South Korea have said about Japan.
They should first ask themselves how much they actually know about Japanese history.
The United Nations has repeatedly issued so-called human-rights recommendations to Japan while, in my view, accepting the assertions of China and South Korea without seriously examining their historical foundations.
At the same time, anti-Japanese Japanese activists have continued their activities at the United Nations in sympathy with China and South Korea, two countries where anti-Japanese education has long been systematically promoted.
Their conduct is profoundly harmful.
They have obstructed the progress of what I call the “turntable of civilization,” which is part of divine providence, and they have contributed to creating the dangerous world in which we now live.
God will never forgive them.
Beyond the gates of heaven, King Yama awaits them with the severest judgment.
Unlike China and Korea, Japan Is an “Incredible Japan” — Society: The Status of Women, Part II
In the previous installment of this column, I described the truly miserable social position of women during China’s Ming and Qing dynasties.
For roughly 540 years, Han Chinese women were subjected from early childhood to the cruel custom of foot binding, a practice that physically deformed their feet.
Once they became adults, their lives were severely restricted by society, and they were deprived of many of the freedoms and rights that should naturally belong to human beings.
After marriage, they were expected to spend their lives in submission to men.
If their husbands died young, remarriage was strongly discouraged or even forbidden.
In effect, they were left with only two choices.
They could spend the rest of their lives serving their husbands’ parents and raising their children.
Or they could be praised for remaining eternally faithful to their dead husbands, even to the point of following them in death.
It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the treatment of women in Ming- and Qing-era China was extraordinarily harsh and uncivilized.
Then what about Korea under the Joseon Dynasty during roughly the same period?
Korea did not practice foot binding.
But in many other respects, the social position of women was not greatly different from that of women in Ming and Qing China.
Japan was completely different.
During the Edo period, from 1603 to 1867, the circumstances in which Japanese women lived were strikingly different from those of women in Ming and Qing China.
First of all, Japanese women were never subjected to foot binding.
Not only during the Edo period, but at no time in Japanese history did Japanese society adopt the Chinese custom of binding women’s feet.
Women in Ming- and Qing-era China were often confined to their homes by severe social restrictions.
Their freedom to go sightseeing, attend theatrical performances, participate in festivals, or visit friends was extremely limited.
Women in Edo-period Japan, however, enjoyed a considerably greater degree of freedom of movement.
There were limited exceptions, such as restrictions on women entering Mount Kōya.
But in general, Japanese women were free to take part in local festivals and to visit temples and shrines.
Written records and genre paintings from the period clearly show that women participated in the pilgrimage to Ise, one of the great popular movements of the Edo era, just as actively as men.
According to Kazuyasu Nakanowatari, a member of the committee responsible for compiling the history of Namioka Town in Minamitsugaru District, now part of Aomori City, the Hirosaki domain granted permission on April 12, 1734, for members of the household of Denbei Ōta of Megasawa Village to make a pilgrimage to Ise.
A surviving document shows that the party included Denbei’s wife, his two daughters in their twenties, and other members of the household and servants.
This account was introduced in the July 1, 2003 issue of Kōhō Namioka.
Think about what this means.
In the eighteenth century, a group that included several women and young daughters could make a journey of more than 1,000 kilometers from the Hirosaki domain in northeastern Japan all the way to Ise.
Such a scene would have been extremely difficult to find in China or Korea at the time.
Indeed, it would have been rare in many other parts of the world as well.
Women in Edo-period Japan also enjoyed significant opportunities for education.
According to Yutaka Yabuta and Keiko Yanagiya, editors of People and Status in the Edo Period, Vol. 4: Women and Status published by Yoshikawa Kōbunkan in 2010, a terakoya school called Jukendō operated in Tsukamoto Village, Iitaka District, Ise Province, from 1792 to 1822.
During those thirty years, the school admitted 478 boys and 165 girls.
The fact that as many as 165 girls received an education is remarkable for that period.
Measured by this standard, educational opportunities for women in Edo Japan compared favorably even with those available in contemporary European societies.
The difference between Japan and Chinese society of the same era was enormous.
In Ming- and Qing-era China, with only limited exceptions, women had almost no access to formal education.
There was even a well-known saying associated with the period:
“Lack of learning in a woman is a virtue.”
There was also a striking difference when it came to divorce and remarriage.
In Ming and Qing China, women were strongly discouraged, and in some cases prohibited, from remarrying after the death of their husbands.
Historical research, however, shows that women in Edo-period Japan enjoyed considerably greater freedom in matters of divorce and remarriage.
Oeyo, who became the wife of the second Tokugawa shogun, Hidetada, had herself already been married twice before marrying him.
According to Tadashi Takagi’s Divorce Letters and Enkiri Temples, published by Yoshikawa Kōbunkan in 2014, researcher Yūko Asakura examined the marital histories of members of 100 daimyo families and 100 hatamoto families during the Edo period.
Her research found an overall divorce rate of 11.23 percent.
The remarriage rate, including women, exceeded 58 percent.
Moreover, divorce in Edo-period Japan was by no means always a unilateral act imposed by the husband.
Divorce by mutual agreement between husband and wife was common.
The so-called “divorce letter” is often portrayed as a symbol of a husband’s unilateral power to cast away his wife.
In reality, however, it also served as a certificate that enabled the divorced woman to remarry.
In many cases, property that a woman had brought with her from her family when she married was returned to her upon divorce.
Takagi’s research also makes this clear.
This was Edo-period Japan.
Women could travel.
Women could receive an education.
Women could divorce.
And women could remarry.
When we look at the rights and freedoms of women from this historical perspective, the contrast could hardly be clearer.
Ming- and Qing-era China imposed severe restrictions on women.
Edo-period Japan, on the other hand, had already developed social customs and practices that, in important respects, compared favorably even with those of contemporary Western societies.