Articles
Practical Frivolities: The Study of Shamisen among Girls of the Late Edo Townsman Class
Abstract
This article investigates the study of music by girls of the townsman class in the late Edo period. Girls were made to take lessons in performing arts, particularly shamisen, which was culturally specific to that class and officially looked upon with suspicion by the samurai. The parents hoped to put daughters with a talent in the performing arts into service with domain lords and high-ranking samurai families. There, daughters could acquire the tastes and culture of the samurai class in everyday life, which enabled them to transcend class boundaries. This was intended help them to make a good marriage in their own class, or to advance in a career as a lady-in-waiting, or to become a concubine of a samurai. This article compares Edo girls to Victorian girls, for whom music was just an "accomplishment," highlighting the career focus in Japan. It will also become clear that those girls in the Meiji period who learned Western musical instruments had a more Victorian attitude. Women in the Edo period are often thought to have led submissive lives, but girls of the townsman class in Edo were industrious, and made concerted efforts to shape their own futures.