The Shogunate Jap Women's Role In Japanese Society

My Shogunate Investigation
Throughout Japan’s history men were valued higher than woman, and men were the favoured gender. Both women and men had different traditions, roles and responsibilities in society. During the Shogunate period (1550 - 1850), Japanese women were mothers, entertainers and even samurai warriors and the social hierarchy played an important role on woman’s freedom and determined their future in society. Women had certain duties to fulfil, and served many men during their lifetime. A key tradition for women in Shogunate Japan is to obey men throughout her lifetime and Confucianism stressed the pre-eminence of men over women . Men possessed many more liberties than women as they were valued much higher, if a women was widowed she could never marry again, whereas if men were widowed they had the …show more content…
The lives of a peasant women and upper-class women contrasted greatly. Surprisingly, peasant women had much more freedom compared to the upper-class women and both followed different traditions and roles in society. Whilst an upper-class women was forced into the tradition of marriage quite early on in her life, a peasant women only got married much later due to her family needing her help for labour and marriage was not necessary. Peasant women worked alongside men in the fields, even though men earned the money, they still had some control over it. Unlike men, women couldn’t remarry after a divorce or being widowed. Peasant women didn’t follow the tradition of being submissive to a man, until men believed they should be like samurai women were. This caused peasant women to lose much of their freedom . The traditional roles of peasant women was to work in the fields, cook, clean and take care of children from wealthier families. Overtime peasant women lost a lot of freedom and responsibilities and later followed many similar traditions compared to the samurai and upper-class