The Importance Of Life In Early Modern Japan

In Japan, the Tokugawa regime actively supported Neo-Confucianism. Many provincial lords founded schools to teach literacy and Confucian scholars. During this era, it was believed that women and men possessed different essential capacities and functions. Some of the reasons for this assumption were their behavior expectations, position with the family, legal rights, public status, education, and types of works. A better explanation of life in the early modern Japan can be found on the writings by Kaibara Ekiken, a Confucian scholar of the early Tokugawa Era. The primaries resources that he wrote are Common Sense Teachings for Japanese Children, a manual for tutors in aristocratic households, and Greater Learning for Women, a discussion of moral precepts for girls. In this writings we learn how the Japan society had different expectations for women and men. These expectations were taught to children slowly as they were getting older. Also, the social status was an important part in the learning process of the children because of the expectations for upper class were higher.

According to the Common Sense Teachings for Japanese Children, obedience, loyalty and trustworthiness, right deportment and decorum, and sense of shame must be inculcated in children.

They were taught to respect their elders and their seniors, to treasure their relationships, to honor the rules and behave properly, and to be humble. However, the teaching process for children of wealthy families was different because they had different expectations. “Those who are born in the high-ranking families have the heavy obligations of becoming leaders of the people, of having people entrusted to their care, and of governing them” (Gainty, Denis, and Walter D Ward, pg.132). They were expected to learn how govern people in order to avoid disaster with the

people.
In the source Greater Learning for Women, Kaibara Ekiken illustrates the proper way for a female to behave. For example, “From her earliest youth, a girl should observe the line of demarcation separating women from men…” (Gainty, Denis, and Walter D Ward, pg.133). Sadly, this shows how women were raised under the belief of gender segregation. A woman was viewed to be inferiors to men and “the only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedience, chastity, mercy, and quietness” (Gainty, Denis, and Walter D Ward, pg.133). Unfortunately, women did not have the same rights to as their husbands. It sounds strange, unfair, discriminating, but this is the gender role for women in Confucianism.