Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan (Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes Book 21) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition
by Amy Stanley (Author), Matthew H. Sommer (Foreword, Contributor) Format: Kindle Edition
5.0 out of 5 stars 2 ratings
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.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“An important book. . . . Illuminates governance and economic change in early modern Japan. . . . Highly recommended.” -- S. A. Hastings, Purdue University ― Choice Published On: 2013-01-23
“Vivid and engaging. . . . A compelling and meticulously researched piece on the evolving place of prostitutes in Early Modern Japanese culture.” -- Sam Bieler, Urban Institute ― Criminal Law & Crim Justice Bks / Criminal Justice Abstracts Published On: 2013-01-28
“Fascinating and often tragic. . . . Stanley’s writing style is both exact and fresh. . . . This book satisfies more than the academic.” -- Kris Kosaka, Hokkaido International School ― Japan Times Published On: 2013-03-03
"An exceptionally sophisticated and extensive study . . . A careful and nuanced retelling . . . lively, insightful, and unique." -- David Eason ― Monumenta Nipponica Published On: 2014-12-01
"Amy Stanley's book provides a detailed and informed information to recent scholarship on the topic of prostitution." ― The Journal of Japanese Studies Published On: 2014-08-20 --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
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From the Inside Flap
“At last, a study that goes far beyond the urban-centered discourse with which we are already familiar to place the trafficking of women in a solid historical and comparative context. Through a carefully reasoned and balanced analysis of diverse sources, Stanley shows how prostitution practices varied. This book will set the standard for studies of prostitution in early modern Japan for decades to come.” -Anne Walthall, University of California, Irvine
“Selling Women is a remarkable achievement. With her gaze fixed firmly on the young women whose labor sustained prostitution as an industry, Amy Stanley traces shifts in the moral economy of the sex trade over the course of the Tokugawa era, and unveils the ironic consequences of economic growth and social change. This meticulously researched, wonderfully written book is a major contribution to the literature on gender and society in Japan.”
-David L. Howell, Harvard University
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Publisher : University of California Press; 1st edition (June 19, 2012)
Publication date : June 19, 2012
Language : English
Print length : 283 pages
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Customer Reviews: 5.0 out of 5 stars 2 ratings
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Biography
Amy Stanley is a professor in the History Department at Northwestern University. She can often be found lecturing about global history, but she is most at home in early modern Japan, specifically in the great city of Edo (now Tokyo). Like many social historians, she is happiest when reading other people's correspondence and perusing shopping lists from 200 years ago. She knows a lot about samurai, and she can tell you all about the condition of the toilets in Edo Castle, though you probably don't want to know. When she's not dwelling in the nineteenth century, she is in Evanston, IL, with her husband, two little boys, and a mutt who may actually be a Catahoula Leopard Dog. You can find her online at www.amy-stanley.com.
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Selling Women is a highly readable book about prostitution in 17th- through 19th-century Japan. It travels through five times and places, discussing the social implications of prostitution and showing how communities both altered and were altered by prostitution. Four of the five chapters give a rare look at prostitution outside the Yoshiwara, including:
* An early mining town where men were allowed--even forced--to treat their wives as capital, denying women rights they would have in later years because of the economic importance of the mine.
* The countryside way stations where "waitresses" served more than tea, and officials struggled with a conundrum: Local men ruined their families financially at the teahouses, but the presence of the waitresses encouraged economic development.
* The licensed quarter of Maruyama in Nagasaki, where courtesans were allowed to leave the quarter to visit the Dutch and Chinese traders' quarters. Unique among pleasure quarters, the women of Maruyama were locals, and some of them still lived at home with their parents.
The book is well written and doesn't assume prior knowledge on the part of the reader--a common problem with books in this niche.
If you're looking for a quick education in Japanese courtesan culture, start with Yoshiwara to understand the pleasure-quarter ideal, then Selling Women to see how the ideal played out in less elevated surroundings. (less)
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