JAPANESE COURTESANS OF THE EDO PERIOD

Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693) was a novelist who lived during the time when Japan reluctantly opened itself to the world. Born into a family of merchants connected to the Dutch trading post in Nagasaki, he had a keen sense of the transitional nature of his time and its inherent dualities. It is perhaps for this reason that his work serves as a kind of inventory of the authentically Japanese way of life, meticulously capturing its details and the richness of daily existence. Today, his novels and stories are an invaluable source of the customs and practices of various strata of Japanese society at that time. Daimyo lords, monks, peasants, merchants, scholars, officials, artisans, thieves, and beggars—Saikaku depicts all these characters with precision, irony, and a masterful touch.

It is also worth noting that Saikaku did not overlook the lives of women during the Edo period—in fact, women received more attention in his works than men. A significant portion of his stories are dedicated to courtesans of all ranks and classes. In a civilization as inclined toward order as Japan’s, even courtesans were categorized into distinct classes with each assigned its specific role.

The fate of a ‘maiden of merriment’ in Japan was traditionally considered a sad one, yet this role was by no means looked down upon. This view stands in contrast to China, where prostitution was viewed with significantly more disapproval, to say nothing of the countries of the Abrahamic religionsiwhich include Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Japan, monogamous marriage was rare for a long time. Instead, a visiting form of marriage prevailed, where the separation of married couples was common. Women often remained in their parental families throughout their lives, their children belonged to their lineage, and inheritance frequently followed the maternal line.

In the Edo period, however, patriarchal, permanent marriage began to be more common, especially among the samurai class. However, society was still not ready to rigidly divide women into ‘virtuous’ and ‘immoral’ categories. For example, most Japanese courtesans eventually married, and their pasts rarely troubled their husbands or society. On the contrary, if a woman had been a renowned and successful courtesan before marriage, it could even enhance the family's reputation.

In Japan, girls were valued no less than boys and often even more. Unwanted boys were sometimes killed at birth, whereas girls could often be sold as young as five or six years old. Traders who purchased young girls roamed the countryside, reaching even the most remote mountain villages.

A pretty and, most importantly, clever girl could fetch enough money to keep her family from starving for a year or two. However, it wasn’t only poor families who sold their daughters—wealthy and even noble families sometimes did so as well. An educated girl who could read, write, and play musical instruments commanded a far higher price.

In The Life of an Amorous Woman, Ihara Saikaku describes just such a woman. A young lady from an influential family was initially placed as a lady-in-waiting at a princely palace, where she sinned with a servant and was subsequently expelled. Her parents, who had had her instructed in dance and song, arranged for her to become a concubine to another aristocrat, but things went awry there as well.

In the end, she was sold:

Fifty ryō was a significant sum, equivalent to 750 grams of gold, which was highly valued in Japan. With that amount, one could buy a small house. Yet the geisha house owner still gained a substantial advantage. Typically, a village girl would serve as a maid for about ten years, receive an education, learn how to converse with guests, master self-care, and receive a decadent wardrobe of silk kimonos painted by fashionable artists. Only then would she be ‘introduced to society’. But in this case, however, the girl was already a refined beauty from a princely palace, skilled in various arts and etiquette. She immediately ascended to the highest rank of courtesans—tayūialso spelled taifu.

The highest-ranking courtesans in Kyoto, Edo, and other major cities lived exclusively in ‘teahouses’ located in specially designated districts known as yukaku or ‘flower quarters’. Each courtesan had to be officially ‘registered’ under the name of a teahouse owner, who recorded her in the courtesan registry maintained at the city office. To remove her name from this registry required a considerable payment to the teahouse owner, a sum that typically grew over time. Fashionable courtesans required luxurious attire, personal servants, lavishly decorated rooms, powder, perfumes, rouge, and jewelry, all of which added to their already considerable costs.

The original amount paid by the owner for a courtesan would multiply several times without her having any patron clients. This was because her value also increased due to rumors of her inaccessibility. Many owners deliberately ‘withheld the goods’, allowing her to appear only for the wealthiest and most desirable guests. Even then, these clients might only gaze at her and engage in conversation—nothing more. True passion is not stirred by those beauties who can be purchased at any time for a few silver coins, and the teahouse owners understood this well.

A young and fashionable tayū lived a life much like that of a singer or storyteller, a geisha. Originally, geisha were exclusively male musicians and narrators invited to entertain guests at banquets, but during the Edo period, women began to adopt this role. A tayū would be invited to gatherings where other women were already present. She would joke with the guests, laugh, play board games like checkers, or sing a song or two. However, when the guests’ gazes became too intrusive, she would shield herself with a golden fan (a distinctive sign of her rank). And if the wine-fueled guests became unruly, she would summon her maid and withdraw. A tayū was often invited to festivals, feasts, boat rides, or outings to admire the autumn maple leaves, embodying a lifestyle filled with artistry, elegance, and allure.

She was courted by famous actors and poets, and her letters to them were sold at auctions—her popularity only delighted the teahouse owners. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, negotiations took place to find her a permanent patron willing to part with a fortune for the privilege of visiting the tayū in her private chambers. The more renowned the courtesan and the greater her number of admirers—some of whom she might occasionally favor under the right circumstances—the higher the stakes. A permanent patron gained unrestricted access to the tayū, covered her living expenses, purchases, and debts, and showered her with gifts and grand gestures.

Ihara Saikaku describes some of these gestures:

Such gestures brought fame not only to the courtesans but also to their patrons. Wealthy merchants often assumed the role of benefactors, and having a celebrated courtesan under their care served as a form of advertisement for their businesses. Extravagant displays in honor of a tayū became popular gossip, not just in affluent households but also on the streets.

Fidelity was not typically expected from courtesans by their patrons. On the contrary, the romantic affairs of a tayū with a famous actor were often met with approval as it introduced a wealthy but socially unconnected merchant into the actor's circle, a sphere that frequently included aristocrats. Likewise, actors and poets often feigned passion for a renowned tayū as a form of mutual promotion. Several great actors were even rumored to keep special boxes at home, allegedly filled with fingernails ripped out by lovesick tayū as tokens of their passion.

A successful tayū would clear her debts within a few years, spend the next several years saving, and then petition her patron to remove her name from the courtesan registry. She would often marry one of her admirers, frequently someone unassuming and inconspicuous, who, in agreement with the courtesan, had been quietly building a modest home to serve as their family nest. The tayū would eventually ‘flutter’ into this home, bringing her savings as the foundation of their new life.

However, an unsuccessful tayū, who failed to secure a truly generous patron, would increasingly resort to arranging individual encounters with clients for a fee. Her owners would start cutting costs on her wardrobe and upkeep, and eventually, she would be downgraded to the rank of tenjin with a corresponding notation made in the registry.

The tenjin, identified by their silver fans, were the primary workforce of the teahouses. While a tayū brought fame to the establishment, a tenjin generated profit. Though a tayū commanded payment in gold, a tenjin earned silver, albeit more frequently. A tenjin would attend to guests on demand, retreating with them to private quarters. Formally, she could refuse a client she found unappealing, but if she did so too often, she would face a grim fate. The owners could demote a neglectful tayū to the status of a mere jōro (geisha) servant.

As a jōro, she would spend her days cleaning the teahouse and attending to the higher-ranking courtesans. By night, she would be sent to noodle shops and other establishments catering to the common folk, where, for a handful of coins, anyone could drag her onto a mattress behind a screen. The noodle shop owner would keep meticulous records of a jōro's clients and send the earnings to the jōro's master.

Only when the jōro became entirely unattractive would the master ‘forgive’ her debts and remove her name from the courtesan registry as maintaining her would no longer be profitable. Saikaku writes that surprisingly, many old, unattractive, and slovenly jōro underwent a remarkable transformation afterward. Their receding hair grew back, facial blemishes vanished, persistent coughing subsided, and even their red noses disappeared. Freed from debt, these newly attractive women often resumed their trade independently.

This form of prostitution, while condemned by public opinion and sometimes pursued by authorities, was nonetheless widespread at the time. Since it was always forbidden for prostitutes to wander the streets seeking clients, self-employed women often turned to intermediaries. These intermediaries could be owners of shops, small inns, bathhouses, and similar establishments.

In conversations with clients, the proprietors would hint at an affordable and enjoyable opportunity. If an agreement was reached, a servant girl would run to fetch the woman, who often lived in a modest home nearby, with a pretext such as needing help with a sewing pattern or caring for a sick child overnight. These courtesans were called ‘women of the shadows’. It was not uncommon for married, impoverished women to engage in this trade, sometimes with their husband’s knowledge. However, this could lead to severe consequences, including imprisonment for both spouses—or, in the case of a samurai family, even execution.

Still, based on Saikaku’s stories and contemporary accounts, laws enforcing marital fidelity were rarely applied in isolation. Punishment typically befell those caught committing additional crimes, such as stealing from clients or trafficking stolen goods.

The Japanese, known for their fondness for baths, made bathhouses—including those at hot springs—a popular feature of cities during the Edo period. Numerous attendants worked in these establishments, assisting guests by washing and drying their clothing, providing massages, serving tea and sweets, and offering services of a more intimate nature. The price for close companionship from an attendant was typically the same as the price of a bath. While some attendants abstained from providing such services, it was more common for sexual services to be part of their offerings.

Interestingly, when authorities occasionally tightened regulations to combat prostitution, bathhouse attendants were often exempt from these strict measures. Their work seemed so ancient, traditional, natural, and widely accepted that they were rarely mentioned in crackdowns. However, it is worth noting that attendants adhered to propriety while on duty; the bathhouse was merely a place for introductions and lacked the privacy for secret encounters.

Soliciting clients on the streets was strictly punished in most cities, and rural villages usually had far too small and poor a population to make such work viable. However, the roads—both land and water—teemed with troupes of wandering singers. Travelers could always invite these performers to their boats, campfires, or inns, ostensibly to enjoy their melodic renditions of songs such as ‘How Melancholy the Pines on the Shore Are Today’. This practice became so widespread that in folklore, these singers were eventually ranked among the four dangers awaiting travelers along with tigers, bandits, and evil spirits.

The lowest status a courtesan could descend to was becoming a soka, which literally means ‘sleeve-grabber’. The soka were believed to be the oldest and least attractive women. They wandered the darkest streets at night, avoiding the eyes of patrolling guards, and grabbed passing men by their clothing to entice them into a brief encounter around the corner. Such encounters typically cost only a few copper coins. Since addressing potential clients on the street was a punishable crime, a soka never spoke but instead relied on silent gestures, waiting for the client to initiate conversation. Another way to skirt the law was to hire a male ‘bull’ to solicit clients on their behalf. According to Saikaku, the typical age of a soka in Kyoto ranged from sixty to eighty years.

As we have discussed, sanctioned forms of prostitution were not punished; rather, they were supported by law, provided that the courtesan adhered to the established rules and instructions. However, these rules frequently changed, were highly varied, and sometimes nearly impossible to follow.

For instance, during Saikaku’s time, courtesans were forbidden from wearing any kind of footwear. This law was intended to combat street prostitution, which was viewed as an unequivocal evil.

It was assumed that women from teahouses had no reason to walk anywhere: they would be carried to feasts, theaters, or visits in palanquins, and for the rest of the time, they were expected to remain modestly at home. In response, courtesans lowered the hems of their kimonos (which is why excessively long kimonos in Japan still carry a faint air of impropriety) and began wearing light straw sandals that could easily be removed during inspections.

Other laws at various times prohibited courtesans from blackening their teeth, restricted the annual amount spent on cosmetics per courtesan, or forbade tayū from mentioning the names of gods in letters to their lovers. This bureaucratic fuss, as usual, caused widespread inconvenience without achieving any tangible results, demonstrating that Japan, in this regard, was much like any other country in the world.