Family, women, and gender in medieval societythe medieval period. In those few pages, Inoue described the early medieval period as a time of
immature feudalism, which still granted women property rights through inheritance. But as feu-
dalism matured, the unitary transmission of family property barred daughters from the inherit-
ance pool, and turned women into a family’s chattel.
The basic historical sources Inoue used are little different from those mined by the earlier
authors, such as Miura Hiroyuki and Okada Akio. But Inoue’s interpretation, guided by a
Marxian teleological theory and revolutionary aspirations, differed in its emphasis on the negative
side of power relations, limits placed on women’s authority, and their victimization. Today,
most Japanese historians have some difficulty with Inoue’s writings, not because of its Marxism
per se but because of its exclusive focus on class struggle as the entire cause of women’s changing
positions. As Tabata Yasuko comments in 1998, other factors, such as the marital residential loca-
tions, marriage relationships, and other cultural aspects also need to be considered.^26 This remark
suggests the influence of Takamure Itsue, indisputably one of the most eminent historians of the
century, to whom we now turn.
Takamure Itsue (1894–1964) lived in a political atmosphere that was loud and lively. On the
one hand, the government ideology of ryōsai kenbo (good wife, wise mother- ism) extolled
women’s virtues and their potential to serve the home and the country as wife and mother. On
the other hand, the feminist movement, symbolized by the publication of “Blue Stockings” by
Hiratsuka Raichō (1886–1971) promoted an intense debate over motherhood, sexuality, mar-
riage, and so on. As Takamure’s writing career began, women activists were raising conscious-
ness, forcefully demanding rights and suffrage in public spaces, and living in accordance with
their sexual ideals.
Initially a poet and activist, Takamure wanted to transform women’s history from a story of
female experiences into a major historical axis around which economic and political institutions
evolved. She isolated herself in her famous “House in the Forest” (mori no ie) in 1931 in order to
narrate “nothing but the truth.” It is said she wrote “for ten hours every day for ten years” while
poring over historical sources.^27 During that time, she published Dai Nippon josei jinmei jisho (“Bio-
graphical Dictionary of Women in Greater Japan”) in 1936, Bokeisei no kenkyū (“Study of Matri-
lineal Descent System”) in 1938, and Josei nisenroppyakunen shi (“2600 Years of Women’s History”)
in 1940.^28 Bokeisei no kenkyū, the work that “challenged the entire premise of Japanese society,”
according to her own words, was met with a silent dismissal by mainstream academia, which
unquestioningly upheld the presumed reality of patrilineal descent from time immemorial.^29 In
1953, she added to her collection her magnum opus, Shōseikon no kenkyū (“Study of the Invite-
the-groom Marriage”). Again, academia paid only slightly more attention than it had done to the
earlier work. Two brief reviews appeared in two newspapers. But it is precisely this book that
historians—especially medieval historians—consider pioneering and the most influential in
setting the future direction of Japanese women’s history.^30
In these and other works, Takamure followed closely the stage theory of transformation out-
lined in Frederick Engel’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and incorporated
the conceptual vocabulary introduced by Lewis Morgan, such as consanguine marriage. She
argued that Japanese society evolved in stages from a more female- centered to a more male-
dominant civilization. The kinship system moved from a communal to a family- based organiza-
tion. Lineage evolved from matrilineal to patrilineal descent. Marriage, which was matrilocal (or
uxorilocal) changed to patrilocal (or virilocal). And women’s sexual freedom transformed to
sexual slavery. This is a simplified summary and excludes various intermediate stages, such as the
progression in marriage form from (1) visiting marriage in which a man visits the woman (tsuma-
doikon); (2) marriage in which a woman’s native family takes in the groom (mukotorikon); to (3)
marriage which only temporarily or superficially sets up an arrangement to have the man move