Selling women : prostitution, markets, and the household in early modern Japan /
This book traces the social history of early modern Japan's sex trade, from its beginnings in seventeenth-century cities to its apotheosis in the nineteenth-century countryside. Drawing on legal codes, diaries, town registers, petitions and criminal records, it describes how the work of "s...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Berkeley :
University of California Press,
[2012].
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| Series: | Asia--local studies/global themes ;
21. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | This book traces the social history of early modern Japan's sex trade, from its beginnings in seventeenth-century cities to its apotheosis in the nineteenth-century countryside. Drawing on legal codes, diaries, town registers, petitions and criminal records, it describes how the work of "selling women" transformed communities across the archipelago. By focusing on the social implications of prostitutes' economic behavior, this study offers a new understanding of how and why women who work in the sex trade are marginalized. It also demonstrates how the patriarchal order of the early modern state was undermined by the emergence of the market economy, which changed the places of women in their households and the realm at large. |
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| Physical Description: | xxii, 256 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780520270909 0520270908 |