H. Tonomura
into the woman’s residence (gisei mukotorikon); and finally (4) marriage that removes the woman
from her natal home to the man’s residence (yometorikon). Takamure fit Engel’s theory, which
connected women’s status to patterns of marriage, property rights, and lineage to Japanese
history. She found the fourteenth century to be the dividing point at which women’s position
began to crumble under the shackles of patriarchal authority.^31
In some of her writings, Takamure employed the vocabulary used in the standard periodiza-
tion scheme, such as “medieval” (chūsei), which began with the establishment of the Kamakura
warrior government and the birth of “feudalism” at the end of the twelfth century.^32 But for
Takamure, the change in warrior rule per se was insignificant compared to what was happening
in marriage arrangements. For her, the major divide occurred in the fourteenth century when the
vocabulary of “yometori,” or “take- the-bride” marriage, began to appear in historical sources, a
clear indication that a patriarchal system was becoming institutionalized. The twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries, when women still held rights to property, presaged the slow devolution of
female rights. As the woman’s person and body were taken away from her natal community or
family in the “take- the-bride” marriage, women moved toward subjugation under the absolute
patriarchal control of the husband’s ie.^33
Although initially ignored, Takamure’s publications have had an enormous influence on sub-
sequent scholarship. In the US, William McCullough, a scholar of Heian literature, who sought
to find ways to make sense out of Heian texts “in which references to marriage practices pose
serious problems of interpretation,” agreed with Takamure in that he found no virilocal (or pat-
rilocal) marriage in the twelfth century. In the thirteenth century, however, the marital residence
came to be inherited along the patrilineal line, a change from the previous transmission of the
residence along the matrilineal line.^34 Peter Nickerson followed McCullough’s lead and discussed
the unusual Heian combination of the customary patterns of patrilineal descent and matrilocal
marital residency. In examining a diary written by Hino Meishi in the mid- fourteenth century, I
found that Meishi’s love relationship and marriage with Saionji Kinmune, at least, fit the pattern
Takamure described remarkably well.^35
Later premodern historians built on Takamure’s accomplishments, but with occasional skep-
ticism toward certain aspects of her observations and interpretations. For example, Sekiguchi
Hiroko points out that mukotori (“take- the-son- in-law”), in which the man moves into the
woman’s house was, after all, a kind of patriarchal form of marriage because it was the woman’s
father who wielded authority over the marriage decision. Some raised questions regarding the
position of secondary wives, whom Takamure did not discuss, in the overwhelmingly poly-
gamous condition of Heian aristocrats. As for property ownership, women’s possession of prop-
erty did not mean superiority to men in economic security, although there was no question that
women had it better in periods with property than later (post- fourteenth-century), times. Some
wondered about the degree to which women could be independent in property management: as
long as the estate management was subject to the power of the central authorities or military
force, what authority could women yield? Scholars also questioned the correlation between the
timing of the development of the institution of ie and that of patrilocal marriage.^36
A more serious charge came from Kurihara Hiromu in his 1994 book. By carefully examining
the historical sources Takamure had analyzed, Kurihara came to the conclusion that she had mis-
interpreted certain sources. Moreover, Kurihara declared, she also purposefully manipulated
interpretations in order to substantiate her theory that archaic Japan was matrilineal.^37
In response to Kurihara’s charges, several scholars, including Nishino Yukiko, pointed to prob-
lems with Kurihara’s understanding of Takamure’s “temporary matrilocal” marriage and the ques-
tion of who provided the temporary abode, for example. Charges of a different nature came from
scholars of modern Japan, such as Nishikawa Yūko and Ueno Chizuko. They criticized Takamure