Coming to the end of the 18th century and the early 19th century, around 10 percent of Japanese women could read and write. This compared to about 40 percent of men. During the Tokugawa period most girls were not educated. Daughters of a samurai were the most likely to receive an education, but it was often restricted. Their teachers instructed them in their household duties and frequently taught them only the simpler written Japanese characters, allowing them to only learn basic literacy. The women during the Tokugawa period also known as the Edo period were very limited as their beliefs and values taught them to be a “good wife, wise mother.” This value that the women had to uphold was the main reason for their restricted opportunities as opposed to the men who received a thorough and rightful education.Women were only allowed to learn to write hiragana, and were prevented from reading political and business transactions or great literary works.
Women's Rights
Women in the Edo Period had a lower status and possessed fewer rights compared to men to a certain extent. Women also lost economical and political rights due to the Tokugawa law. Women could not own property, and a women’s husband was entitled to kill his wife for being lazy or bad, in the circumstances of household chores or how she presented herself as a faithful wife and obedient mother. During the Edo period marriage was arranged by the parents, and the woman would have no choice or rightful say into who she should wed. Women had to endure hardships and brutal abuse and serve their husbands and in-laws. Wives of Samurais and peasants had different statuses, yet their rights were similarly limited. Even if a samurai woman could learn to read and write, they were never allowed to use their teachings in the actual work of the government.
Treatment amongst Men
Women were in all ways subordinate to men.Woman began to be classified under men during the Tokugawa period. During this time, samurai women were treated like semi-slaves by their husbands regardless of the spouses social standing. There was a separation of rank and gender, which influenced the roles woman played in Japanese society and how they were treated in regard to the men. Women were always held below them and were inferior to the superior. Even though a woman may be married to a man of higher social order, her position and ruling did not change based on her new status, but by her gender as a female in Japanese society.
Responsibilities
There was a separation of rank and gender, which influenced the roles woman played in Japanese society and the responsibilities they had amongst the communities.
Responsibilities and jobs they were obligated to uphold included:
~ Being slaves to their husbands
~ Becoming theatre performers/entertainers
~ Upholding the role of a mothers and wife
~ Being a housemaid, for their families
The cultivation of leisure was a key to raise up social status of women who worked in the pleasure quarter. They were influential in setting standards in dress, hair style, and personal cultivation. The pleasure quarter was a large-scale painted screen to stimulate the world of pleasure and entertainment created for men in Japan of the Edo period, the quarter was a responsibility of a woman to be an exquisite performer. During the time of social upheaval, women were encouraged to be the moral foundation of the country of Japan. The traditional notion of the Confucian family: father to son, senior to junior, husband to wife, was pushed by the government as it attempted to increase the birth rate so that Japan could compete on a more equal level with the countries of the West. This system gave the woman a responsibility in producing more children with their men to enable the birth of more boys to fight and protect their country. To men this was an honorable task, but for them it was a harsh sacrifice of the body and freedom as individuals.
Social Order
The women’s social position during the Edo period was ranked very high. Gender had been regarded to have been an important principle of arrangement and order throughout Japan. The same limitations applied for women of higher ranks. Samurai women may be educated, but due to their social confinement, their rare education was not used for political work. No matter their social status women were all the given the same unfair equality. Women in Japanese society were discriminated against by gender rather than marriage or social ranking. Due to this, woman were predominantly all treated the same no matter who they wed to in the social classification or their own status. Women were all positioned differently on the social order depending on how they contributed to society, but no matter what they did they were never ranked above men.
Role in Society
A Japanese women's role in their society was being a loyal maid wife, as well as an obedient mother. There had no entitlement and were given no choice or opinion in the men they would marry, whether they wanted children or even what house they lived in. A woman's role was simple as they were forbidden to be thoroughly educated. They completed house hold chores and nurtured the children until they were grown. Many woman during the Edo Period were entertainers and theatre dancers to the hierarchy including the Tokugawa family that ruled during this period. Women living under the Tokugawa Shogunate did not exist legally, therefore they had no real roles during the Edo period, as there were not even recognized. The woman who were further down the social order had no real roles in society at this time either, but instead spent most days being a housewife and mother.