Love, Sex, and Marriage on the Road to War

Abstract

Although love and marriage may well go together like the proverbial horse and carriage, neither love marriages nor horse-driven transport were part of Japan’s social landscape prior to the “opening” of Japan to the West by Commander Perry of the US East India fleet in 1853. At that time Japanese people had hardly had any contact with the wider world for over 200 years due to the policy of national seclusion (sakoku) that had been enforced by the Tokugawa shoguns, the country’s military leaders. During that period Japanese people were banned from leaving the country and only minimal foreign trade was permitted with Dutch and Chinese emissaries, mediated exclusively through a small offshore island in the southern port of Nagasaki. The circulation of foreign ideas, particularly information about Christianity, was heavily censored and even in-country trade and the movement of people were closely scrutinized and regulated by the authorities.