not a chapter review

[fidelioscabinet]

but perhaps not entirely irrelevant:

Considering the issues all of us are having over the way male-female relations are depicted in ToG (and other work from the same era), how much influence is the concept of yin and yang having on this issue for them? Or is this a question whose answer is so blindingly obvious I should go and read up on robes and

Comments

[telophase]

I think the question is when the yin/yang concept originated, and had it come over to Japan from China by then. Morris says in a footnote in The World of the Shining Prince (pg. 237) that Chinese yin-yang literature and medical texts emphasized the medical advantages of fequent sex with several different women, and we know that at least one Japanese court physician of the era was familiar with Chinese handbooks of sex from the Sui and T'ang dynasties and included them in his Ishinho. He goes on to say: "It therefore seems reasonable to assume that the main points mentioned in the handbooks, such as prenatal care and giving the woman satisfaction during intercourse, were known to the ladies and gentlemen of the Heian Court."

[telophase]

* er, so if the yin/yang woman/man concept was in those handbooks, then there's good chance it was part of how they conceptualized male/female relationships.

[fidelioscabinet]

Thanks--I mean, a horndog is still a hornddog, for whatever reason he uses to justify it, but I was thinking the whole yin-yang thing might have helped intensify sex roles and characteristics--the women seem so utterly passive to us, and the men so hyper-aggressive (in sexual matters, at least). Of course, I don't know enough about the cultural concepts about sex roles that were already in place before they had the yin/yang duality to reckon with.

[telophase]

I was on the phone with my mother a day or to ago, and when telling ehr about the beginning of chapter 8, it occurred to me that part of women being passive and wuilling to acquiesce is that, in their world, they often had no forms of support other than their fathers, husbands, sons, or lovers. And that one of the reasons Genji was held up as the ideal man is that he didn't withdraw support from his mistresses, even when the relationship was broken off. So if Genji sneaks into your room and, basically, rapes you, well, at least it's Genji, and if you manage to snag him, you'll have some sort of connection you can rely on.

[fidelioscabinet]

That makes sense; frex, he and his first wife Don't Get On, but instead of dumping her altogether, Genji provides for her support and at least goes through the motions of being a "good husband" (i.e., one who sees to it she has housing, attendant, robes etc. appropriate to both her rank and his own, plus occasionally talking to her and having sex with her sometimes). Part of that, is, of course that he needs her father's political support--but he keeps her instead of looking for a replacement that comes with comparable backing.

Then there's the poor Safflower Princess whom he buys clothes and so on for--instead of just saying mean things about her nose. (Apparently we wouldn't have found the nose quite so bad--but it was Not Suitable according to Heian standards of beauty. No wonder the poor thing stayed hidden away--she'd probably had it tactfully pointed out to her by all the other ladies that she had a big nose since she was a small child.)