Noble-Class Women In The Tales Of Genji

Chris Shea

ENG 203

Professor Meghan Evans

10/26/15

Mini-Paper #3, Question #1 In the final pages of Chapter II of The Tales of Genji, Genji is involved in a conversation with his best friend To no Chujo along with a warden and a secretary. And the subject of the conversation they are having is a very interesting one: what qualities must a woman possess to please and satisfy her husband? To set this up, Genji and To no Chujo are having an initial conversation of the three types of women there are.

The first type is the noble-class woman. According to Genji and To no Chujo, a noble-class woman is highly educated and intelligent. However, due to this high intelligence from her education, a noble-class woman can also be secretive and cunning.

According to Genji and To no Chujo, a middle-class woman still has her own personality just like the noble-class woman. However, she has many more overall flaws than the noble-class woman. And to pour salt on the wound for the sake of Genji and To no Chujo, a middle-class woman is not ashamed of who she is, regardless of the many flaws she may have in their eyes.

And the third type is the lower-class woman. This is the worst type of woman according to Genji and To no Chujo. A lower-class woman is not properly educated, nor does she have any sort of real talent. And the worst part is that she has a terrible personality and has many, many flaws. And even despite all this, she is absolutely not ashamed of who she is. This is mainly due to her standing in the class hierarchy, ultimately leading to her lack of education.

Later on, the warden and the secretary hear what Genji and To no Chujo are talking about and want to jump right into the action. And when they do jump in, they ultimately take the conversation into a bit of a different direction (although the same principles apply). Instead of talking about the different types of women in the world, they shift direction to talking about what an ideal wife would be like (and boy is it a laundry

With a 9 main qualities and 5 sub-qualities bringing in a total of 14, clearly this is a very lengthy (and perhaps impossible) list of qualities a woman must possess in order to satisfy her potential husband. And this also clearly speaks volumes of how women were portrayed in Japan. In most other cultures at the time, women were simply viewed as producers of offspring. But at least in the interpretation seen in The Tales of Genji, it appears as though Japan took it several steps further and turned women into essentially robots.

According to Genji, To no Chujo, the warden, and the secretary, a woman is expected to shove her instincts aside and serve her husband in as many ways as possible. And of course given various circumstances, there would likely be a 99.9% chance that a woman would not be able to fulfill this laundry list of qualities to be a good wife. A woman might be talented in the arts and a good listener and supporter, but she might just like to be as fashionable as possible. Or she might be young, supportive, and be able to succeed in all of the ‘wife duties’, but she might be pretty mad if her husband cheats on her with another woman.