H. Tonomura
Chūsei no ai to jūzoku: Emaki no naka no nikutai (“Medieval Love and Subjugation: the Body and
Flesh in Scrolls”) exemplify this development. The use of images such as “Shokunin uta awase”
(“Contest of Poetry on the Theme of Artisans”) also enabled an analysis of the imagined work of
female and male artisans and professionals.^43
By the 1990s, the field of medieval history was bursting with popularity in Japan, both in
academia and among the reading public. Women’s history, the new field, continued to flourish.
In 1992, a three- volume set on Japanese women’s history (Nihon josei no rekishi) was packaged into
a popular Pocket Book series, each covering the entire history of the country but focusing the-
matically on “sex, love, and family,” “women’s work,” and “culture and thoughts.” 1996 saw
the publication of Onna to otoko no jikū, mentioned earlier. In addition to the issues of property
rights and roles within the ie, the medieval volumes emphasized interdisciplinary work inspired
by religion, art history, and performance art, such as the medieval image of the Sun Goddess,
Blood Bowl Sutra belief, Christianity and folk beliefs, women- specific hells, women’s language,
and itinerant women. A ten- volume collection, Nihon joseishi ronshū (“Collected Essays on Jap-
anese Women’s History”), covering various themes, such as politics, labor, ie, religion, educa-
tion, and athletics, bore fruit in 1997, by the effort of the Research Collective for Women’s
History (Sōgō joseishi kenkyūkai).^44
Outside the collectives, Japanese scholars also turned their energy toward individual titles
with attractive themes. These included a work on the lives of children and the aged, wet nurses,
and men practicing male- male sex.^45 The hardening notion of pollution, which loomed large in
the structure of medieval society and affected women’s social position, received an in- depth
examination by Narikiyo Hirokazu while the related issues of motherhood, blood sutra belief,
birth- giving, and nursing became the focus of Katō Mieko’s work.^46
This trend generated not only a large output of scholarly works in a variety of subjects but
also saw new noteworthy interpretations that expanded and questioned Takamure’s perspective
in important ways. By adopting an intersectional approach that focused on commoner women,
Nagahara Keiji concluded women’s status was in fact rising in late medieval times, in contrast to
Takamure’s assessment, which had been based mostly on aristocratic sources.^47 Another note-
worthy reinterpretation of Takamure’s view came from Wakita Haruko, the doyen of women’s
history. By examining warrior and aristocratic sources, Wakita remarkably argued that the ie had
a positive effect on women; the shift from matrilocal to patrilocal marriage and the emergence of
ie meant a new sense of security for women that the previous visiting marriage system lacked.
Wakita sees ie as a monogamous economic unit that demanded management by both the wife and
the husband. The wife, especially as the mother of the heir, held authority over production and
reproduction pertaining to the ie. The structure of ie, in other words, subjugated both the husband
and the wife. The security of the marital relationship demanded that the wife be the house admin-
istrator, a structure that assured more gender symmetry in power than before.^48
One area of inquiry that had received scant attention was late medieval aristocratic families.
The new thorough examination of families such as the Ichijō and Sanjōnishi by Gotō Michiko
reveals the increased authority of the tsuma (wife), which paralleled the consolidation of patrilin-
eal descent and ancestral veneration in the declining economic, but not cultural, condition of late
medieval times. Echoing Wakita’s interpretation, Gotō explains that, previously, in times of dual
lineage interest, temples had performed ceremonies for ancestral veneration at the temple sepa-
rately for the wife’s and husband’s lineages. The new emphasis on a single patrilineal interest in a
given family allowed a private space of worship to be set up within the house. This new arrange-
ment authorized the tsuma to govern the home- based memorial service, though it was for her
husband’s parents instead of her natal family members. This was an ironic situation that moved
“the outer” space into “the domestic” sphere, and allocated new authority to the tsuma. Gotō’s