"Onna daigaku": Character Building Calligraphy I

From Waseda's copy;
link is below

In the course of working on better understanding neo-Confucianism, I started thinking about Onna daigaku 女大学 (18th century), which borrows the name of the key neo-Confucian text I've been writing about here, Daxue. It's not a single text as much as a bit of shorthand to refer to a whole lineage of textbooks for women, the earliest of which is Onna daigaku takarabako 女大学宝箱 (Women's 'Great learning' jewel box), erroneously attributed to neo-Confucianist philosopher and educator Kaibara Ekken 貝原 益軒 (1630-1714).  Its content bears very little relationship to Daxue; its authors merely added the title to make the point that Onna daigaku should also be regarded as an essential basic textbook. Its intended audience was women, so there's none of the pithy, thought-provoking text of the real Daxue. Instead, it addresses specific behaviors expected from women -- how to get along in their own households and that of their husband.

The book I'm reading about it is called Onna daigaku shû (Onna daigaku anthology) 女大学集, by Ishikawa Matsutarô 石川松太郎 (Heibonsha, 1977). It covers textbooks for women starting in Hôei 7 (1711, Volume 5 of Ekken's "Girls' pedagogy," from 和俗童子訓 Precepts for Children in the Japanese Manner), with 8 more examples, the last of which is Fukuzawa Yukichi's Onna daigaku hyôron, (Critical Onna daigaku), 1899. It's got great annotations and commentary, and is illustrated with reproductions of woodblock editions of the texts it includes, so it's really useful. Right now I'm really interested in what it says about women's textbooks in the eighteenth century, so my notes here will summarize what it says about that. What caught my attention was the way that Onna daigaku demonstrates theories about relationship between moral education (or if you prefer, self-cultivation), calligraphy models, and visual imagery. Consciously setting to one side the deep unpalatability of the message about women always obeying men, I want to think more deeply about the issue of specialized textbooks for women and wonder what's here.

(Click "Read more" for the rest of this post.)

If you're curious about the content, a partial translation is available online, and you can read the whole thing as a book.

• Excerpts from Onna daigaku (PDF, hosted by Columbia University)
• The book is called Women and Wisdom of Japan. A number of versions are kicking around on the internet. A reprint is also available as Onna Daigaku: A Treasure Box of Women's Learning from Nezu Press, 2010.
• Also, there are some amazing digitized editions available through Japanese libraries. Try this one, at Tokyo Gakugei Repository; or this one, at Waseda.

Ishikawa's commentary describes several phases in textbooks for women. Education in the early modern period for men and women was different, as there were different expectations for the roles men and women would play in the ie (household). In describing the differences, the implication is that in the 17th century most of the education was taking place in elite families, and as social organization was based in the ie, it focused on preparing people to take their respective roles. The ie included long-dead ancestors as well as newborn grandchildren. Boys were taught scholarship, martial arts, and how to maintain the continuity of the ie in which they would spend their lives. As girls would eventually leave their natal ie and join somebody else's, they also had to learn how to get along with their husband's family as well as how to raise children and perform household tasks. The requirements for being a cultivated woman was essentially possession of these four qualities: 1) wifely virtue 婦徳, 2) wifely speech 婦言, 3) wifely appearance 婦容, 4) wifely skills 婦巧. Educational materials tended to convey their message in two different ways: abstract admonition about morals was one, and illustrative stories about exemplars was the other.

The first appearance of textbooks aimed particularly at girls corresponded with a few developments -- a peaceful state, improved printing technology, and the importation of books from China. These included Chinese texts for educating girls; thus, some of the earliest Edo-period girls' textbooks were basically annotated Chinese texts. Ishikawa mentions Kumabara Banzan's Precepts for Women 女訓 (1691). Another group of texts consisted of annotations of the imported Women's Four Books 女四書 (1656), including Women's Classic of Filial Piety 女孝経, Admonitions for Women　女誡, Women's Analects　女論語, and Precepts for the Interior 内訓. Also in 1656, Kitamura Kigin published a version of (the Chinese) Biographies of Exemplary Women called Biographies of Exemplary Women in the Japanese Syllabary 仮名列女伝. This was followed by Kurozawa Hirotada's 黒沢弘忠 Japanese Biographies of Exemplary Women 本朝列女伝(1663) and Asai Ryoi's 浅井了井 Japanese Mirror for Women 本朝女鏡 (1661).

Things developed further in the eighteenth century, as access to education and books began to extend to commoners, and correspondingly there was more demand for texts that would teach women basic literacy, letter writing skills, and proper behavior. An early best seller at this stage was based on the Muromachi-era classic Imagawa Admonitions 今川状 (by Imagawa Nakaaki); it was called Onna Imagawa 女今川 and followed a similar format of bullet-point style instructions about what not to do. In addition to its content, it was important as a model for handwriting practice.

A digital version of a copy at Waseda is here.

Other kinds of textbooks followed on from late Heian/early Kamakura boy's textbooks like Teachings on Words of Truth 実語教 and Teachings for Children 童子教: Women's Admonitions Illustrated Women's Teachings on Words of Truth 女誡絵入女実語教 and Women's Admonitions Illustrated Women's Teachings for Children 女誡絵入女童子教.

A digital version of the former at Tokyo Gakugei Repository is here.  A digital version of an edition of the latter that is not illustrated, but written in exquisite calligraphy, is here.

The content emphasized developing wisdom and good moral character, as they were supposed to collect the essential teachings of the Four Books. They were also used as models for handwriting. In addition to these, there were lots of other women's textbooks published during this period, all of which combined examples of good writing with instruction in the virtues and skills required of women in maintaining the continuity of their households.

Wow! This has gotten more detailed than I'd anticipated! Ok, I'll publish this in two parts. The rest will follow before too long.