Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:56:34.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Erotic Family: Structures and Narratives of Milk Kinship in Premodern Japanese Tales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

Sachi Schmidt-Hori*
Affiliation:
Sachi Schmidt-Hori ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor of Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages at Dartmouth College.
Get access

Abstract

This essay proposes that “milk kinship,” which upper-class individuals in premodern Japan formed with their milk kin—a menoto (wet nurse) and a menotogo (foster sibling)—occupies the core of an institutionalized erotic fosterage. In this “menoto system,” the surrogate mother's lactating body and erotic-affective labor became the connective tissue to bind two interclass families, creating a symbiosis that fortified the existing sociopolitical power structures. Around the tenth century, many vernacular tales started to feature menoto characters. While a typical menoto is the protagonist's homely, asexual, motherly confidante, her derivative construct—the menotogo of the protagonist—is often cast in an erotic light. In the four texts examined in this essay, menotogo valorize their erotic agencies to benefit their charges through sexual-affective labor or through an indirect method. The latter entails the formation of a “love square” in which two menotogo become lovers and then help their respective charges do the same.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Abe, Akio. 1956. “‘Menshūdo’ ni tsuite” [On meshūdo]. Nihon bungaku 5 (9): 4348.Google Scholar
Abe, Akio, Gen'e, Imai, Ken, Akiyama, and Hideo, Suzuki, eds. 1994–98. Genji monogatari 1–6. Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū [New collection of classical Japanese literature; cited as SNKBZ], vols. 20–25. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.Google Scholar
Aoki, Yūko. 2007. “Chigo-mono ‘Matsuho monogatari’ no hōhō: Chigo no zōkei to sono monogatari jojutsu” [The method of “The Tale of Matsuho”: The characterization of chigo and storytelling]. Denshō bungaku kenkyū 56:8596.Google Scholar
Atkins, Paul S. 2008. “Chigo in the Medieval Japanese Imagination.Journal of Asian Studies 67 (3): 947–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargen, Doris G. 2015. Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.10.1515/9780824857332CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Mary Elizabeth, and Yonemoto, Marcia, eds. 2019. What Is a Family? Answers from Early Modern Japan. Oakland: University of California Press.10.1525/luminos.77CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Steven T. 1998. “From Woman Warrior to Peripatetic Entertainer: The Multiple Histories of Tomoe.Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 58 (1): 183–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Timothy, et al. , eds. 2013. Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Conlan, Thomas D. 2005. “Thicker than Blood: The Social and Political Significance of Wet Nurses in Japan, 950–1330.Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 65 (1): 159205.Google Scholar
D'Etcheverry, Charo B. 2004. “Out of the Mouths of Nurses: The Tale of Sagoromo and Midranks Romance.Monumenta Nipponica 59 (2): 153–77.Google Scholar
Farris, William Wayne. 2009. Japan's Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Fukutō, Sanae. 2000. Heianchō no haha to ko: Kizoku to shomin no kazoku seikatsushi. Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha.Google Scholar
Furuta, Masayuki. 2014. Heian monogatari ni okeru jijo no kenkyū [A study of female attendants in Heian tales]. Tokyo: Kasama Shoin.Google Scholar
Gomi, Fumihiko. 1984. Inseiki shakai no kenkyū [A study of Japanese society during the insei period]. Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha.Google Scholar
Ichiko, Teiji, ed. 1994. Heike monogatari 1–2. Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū (cited as SNKBZ), vols. 45–46. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.Google Scholar
Inagaki, Taruho, ed. 1977. Taruho-ban “Nanshoku ōkagami [Taruho version of The Great Mirror of Male Love]. 2 vols. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten.Google Scholar
Kimura, Saeko. 2009. Chibusa wa dare no mono ka [To whom do breasts belong?]. Tokyo: Shin'yōsha.Google Scholar
Kubota, Jun, ed. 1999. Kenreimon'in Ukyō no Daibu-shū, Towazugatari. [Collection of Ukyō no Daibu, Confessions of Lady Nijō] Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū (cited as SNKBZ), vol. 47. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.Google Scholar
Liu, Lydia He. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity: China, 1900–1937. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Masuda, Shigeo. 2009. Heian kizoku no kekkon, aijō, seiai: Tasaisei shakai no otoko to onna [Heian aristocrats’ marriage, love, and sexuality: Men and women in polygynous society]. Tokyo: Seikansha.Google Scholar
Mitani, Ei'ichi and Kuniaki, Mitani, eds. 2000. Ochikubo monogatari. Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū (cited as SNKBZ), vol. 17. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.Google Scholar
Nakano, Kōichi, ed. 1994–2002. Utsuho monogatari 1–3. Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū (cited as SNKBZ), vols. 14–16. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.Google Scholar
Nickerson, Peter. 1993. “The Meaning of Matrilocality: Kinship, Property, and Politics in Mid-Heian.Monumenta Nipponica 48 (4): 429–67.10.2307/2385292CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saeki, Shin'ichi. 2009. Kenreimon-in to iu higeki [Tragedy called Kenreimon-in]. Tokyo: Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan.Google Scholar
Sakai, Naoki. 2008. Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt-Hori, Sachi. 2009. “The New Lady-in-Waiting Is a Chigo: Sexual Fluidity and Dual Transvestism in a Medieval Acolyte Tale.Japanese Language and Literature 43 (2): 383423.Google Scholar
Schmidt-Hori, Sachi. 2015. “The Boy Who Lived: The Transfigurations of Chigo in the Medieval Japanese Short Story Ashibiki.Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 75 (2): 299329.10.1353/jas.2015.0019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt-Hori, Sachi. 2020. “Symbolic Death and Rebirth into Womanhood: An Analysis of Stepdaughter Narratives from Heian and Medieval Japan.Japanese Language and Literature 54 (2): 448–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt-Hori, Sachi. 2021. Tales of Idolized Boys: Male-Male Love in Medieval Japanese Buddhist Narratives. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1985. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimizu, Hideaki and Akiyasu, Tōdō, eds. 1984. Nihongo gogen jiten [Dictionary of Japanese etymology]. Tokyo: Gendai Shuppan.Google Scholar
Takagi, Makoto. 2008. Heike monogatari: Sōchi to shite no koten [The Tales of the Heike: A classical tale as a device]. Yokohama: Shunpūsha.Google Scholar
Tōno, Haruyuki. 1979. “Nikki ni miru Fujiwara Yorinaga no nanshoku kankei: Ōchō kizoku no vita sexualis” [Fujiwara Yorinaga's homoerotic relationships observed in his diaries: Vita sexualis of courtiers]. Historia 84:1529.Google Scholar
Torigoe, Bunzō, Tadayoshi, Ōhashi, Tameo, Yamane, Hiroyuki, Sakaguchi, and Chiyoji, Nagatomo, eds. 1998. Chikamatsu Monzaemon-shū 1–3 [Collection of works by Chikamatsu Monzaemon]. Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū (cited as SNKBZ), vols. 74–76. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.Google Scholar
Tyler, Royall. 2009. The Disaster of the Third Princess: Essays on The Tale of Genji. Canberra: ANU Press.Google Scholar
Vincent, Keith. 2012. Two-Timing Modernity: Homosocial Narrative in Modern Japanese Fiction. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Wakita, Haruko and Gay, Suzanne. 1984. “Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan From the Perspective of Women's History.Journal of Japanese Studies 10 (1): 7399.Google Scholar
Yoshikai, Naoto. 1995. Heian-chō no menoto-tachi: Genji monogatari e no kaitei [Menoto of the Heian period: Steps toward the Tale of Genji]. Kyoto: Sekai Shisōsha.Google Scholar
Yoshikai, Naoto. 2008. Genji monogatari no menoto-gaku: Menoto no iru fūkei o yomu [A menoto study within the Tale of Genji: Reading the realm of menoto]. Kyoto: Sekai Shisōsha.Google Scholar