Love-making, Marriage, and Punishment in Shogun-Japan

A Day In History -- Mar 30

For almost 700 years between the 12th and 19th centuries, Japan was ruled by a Shogun. This was the age of samurai and the formation of the modern nation of Japan. This period also saw the emergence of new ideas about love-making and marriage.

Today, we’ll be looking at love, marriage, divorce, and sexual culture in Shogun-era Japan. If you enjoy videos like this topic, please like and subscribe to the channel for more content like this.

It has sometimes been said that there was no such thing as romance in pre-modern Japan. This isn’t really true - plenty of love stories exist from this period - but it is true that love was not an important part of marriage or sex for most of the Shogun period.

Marriage itself was an ill-defined institution in earlier Japanese history. In the early Shogunate, marriages were not ceremonial events or legal contracts, but merely social agreements between a couple. Even cohabitation for spouses was a relatively new aspect of marriage in the 12th and 13th centuries. Modern ideas of marriage were still forming so it is no surprise that there were many different approaches to it across time and between different classes. ...continue reading