In General, samurai society was dominated by men,
but history records that the female members of the samurai clans
often displayed a fighting spirit and a concern for honour and duty
matching that of the men.
Women were trained in the martial arts and, in time, many became
highly skilled, especially in the use of naginata.
 Tales
of courageous and devoted samurai women abound in the epic "Heike
Monogatari". chief among these is Minamoto Yoshinaka's wife,
Tomoe Gozen, but the period produced numerous other heroic samurai
women, including Hojo Masako, the wife of Minamoto Yoritomo, who
was known as "the general in nun's habit" (on her husbands
death, she became a Buddhist nun, the traditional fate of samurai
windows). Masako was a prominent political player in the early
years of the Hojo regency that succeeded her husband, at one point
engaging in open conflict with her father. From her new position
as a Buddhist nun, she successfully bullied the samurai class
into standing by the shogunate.
These histories reflect the relatively strong position women held
in samurai society at the time. Laws governing the shogun's court
in the early 13th century allowed women equal rights of inheritance
with brothers and the right to bequeath property. Samurai and
bushi wives had high status in the household. They controlled
household expenditure, managed servants, and were called upon
to defend the home in times of war. They were also responsible
for rising their children to the samurai ideas of contempt death
and unquestioning loyalty to their lord.
"A creature of... no importance"
Over the centureies that followed, the practice of
using daughters as pawns in the marriage market (a crucial tool
in the struggles of the period) and the influence of neo-confucain
philosophy, combined to reduce the status of female samurai.The
ideal of fealess devotion was gradually replaced by one of quiet
passive obedience, a change reflected by the introduction of the
new words for wife: Kani and okusan (person in the innermost recesse
of the house).
By the 17th century, many samurai felt that while women were necessary
to bear children, they were not really fitting companions for warriors.
A cult of homesexuality developed amoung some warriors and, despite
repeated prohibiton, many adult samurai formed close relationships
with men. In 1687, Ihara Saikaku published his famouse book "Nanshoku
okagami" ("The Great Mirror of Manly Love"), which
took the homosexual activitys amoung the samurai as its theme. "Woman
is a creature of absolutely no importance', he wrote, "but
sincere pederastic love is true love".
 Samurai
women were still expected to show contempt for death when it came
to defending their husbands honour. A wife's sacrifice of herself,
or her honour, for the sake of her husband was a common theme in
Japanese drama. self-renunciation was an imperative for women and
remained so even at the end of the 19th century, despite the popularity
of western ideas.
Inanzo Nitobe, writing in 1905, devoted one chapter of his book
"Bushido: The soul of Japan"
to "The Training and position of women". This underlines
the inferior role accorded to women, telling us that: "In the
ascending scale of service stood woman, who annihilated herself
for a man, that he might annihilate himself for the master, that
he in turn might obey Heaven'.
However, the fighting sprit of the female samurai still managed
to show itself on occasion. Their martial prowess was demonstered
during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, when the women of Kagoshima
fought against the imperial army. In 1868, the fighting between
suporters of of the shogunate and those supporting the imperial
restoration privided another such display.
Samurai of the Aizu clan, supporters of the shogunate, were left
to defend thier stronghold of wakamatsu Castle without any hope
of outside assistance. Heaviley out numbered by an army of 20,000
men, the 3,000 Aizu samurai mobilased anyone who could use a weapon.
A group of 20 women formed a unit that fought on the front line.
One women, Nakano Takeko, was highly skilled in the use of the naginata,
and during the fighting she rushed into enemy lines and cut down
many men. Eventually she was shot in the chest. To aviod the disgrace
of capture, she told her sister Yuko to remove her head and take
it home.
A monument to her was erected in the Hokai temple in Aizu Bangemachi,
Fukishima province.
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