This week, we looked at excerpts from the Tale of Genji. The Tale of Genji is written by a lady of the court, and gives an interesting insight into the daily life of people in the Heian nobility. In particular, the text shows the ways that women lived in the court, with boredom being something of a theme. At several points throughout the excerpts that we read, courtly ladies are looking for something to do; this happens during both the section where Genji comes in and discusses the worth of novels, as well as when his wife decides to let her maids see the imperial procession. This can lead to the conclusion that women in the Heian court were not expected to have many external responsibilities, meaning that they had a great deal of time to spend in leisure. This is also alluded to when Genji and his friends are discussing their ideal woman, with her many accomplishments. If a woman has time to perfect many accomplishments like poetry and calligraphy, then she is likely not doing much outside of her home.
One point that the text raises but does not answer (at least in the sections that we read) was how acceptable the womanizing of Genji would be. He and his friends seem to discuss how they have experience courting multiple women, and the emperor at least has many concubines, since Genji’s mother is his favorite. On the other hand, Lady Aoi does not seem to think that it is acceptable for her husband to be unfaithful to her, and the men discuss how a woman might be upset of her husband commits adultery while they are discussing their ideal women.
Something else that is never properly answered is the question of how much interaction there was between men and women at the Heian court. I would have expected there not to have been much, unless they were within the same household, but the passage with the battle of the carriages includes many women who Genji had “paid discreet visits to.” If he had not met them formally, how had he even come across them for him to pay the visits in the first place?
Helen Craig McCullough, translator. Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of Heike, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
“Murasaki Shikibu: On the Art of Fiction.” In Sources of Japanese Tradition, Volume One: From Earliest Times to 1600. 2nd edition, edited by Ryūsaku Tsunoda, Wm. Theodore De Bary, and Donald Keene, 201-202. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
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