Kidnapping a concubine, although common in fiction, would have been shameful, if not criminal.ĭuring the Tokugawa Era (1603-1868), many samurai began to be more bureaucrats rather than warriors. In many cases, taking a concubine was akin to a marriage. In these marriages, a dowry was brought by the woman and was used to set up the couple’s new household.Ī samurai could take concubines, but their backgrounds were checked by higher-ranked samurai. Most samurai married women from a samurai family, but for lower-ranked samurai, marriages with commoners were permitted. While for those samurai in the upper ranks this was a necessity (as most had few opportunities to meet women), this was a formality for lower-ranked samurai. Samurai had arranged marriages, which were arranged by a go-between of the same or higher rank. The Hagakure, an eighteenth-century collection of writings on Bushido, proclaims, “The way of the Samurai is death… When a samurai is constantly prepared for death, he… may unerringly devote his life to the service of his lord.” He must gladly face danger, even death, in the performance of his duties. Bushido demanded that a samurai show absolute loyalty and obedience to his lord.
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Samurai warriors live by Bushido, a code of behavior that covers nearly every area of life. They had high prestige and special privileges such as wearing two swords. They were the well-paid retainers of the daimyo (the great feudal landholders).
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The word bushi means “man of arms.’ Another document from the Heian period, listing various professions, includes bushi along with other specialists such as men of letters, doctors, singers, dancers, and others.Īs numerous studies have pointed out, they were neither landowners nor armed farmers from the beginning, they were professional warriors. Mono means ‘thing’ and fu means ‘man’ that is, men who deal with things – ‘things’ in this case meaning weapons. The word first appeared in a document of the Heian period before that time such people had been called mono-no-fu or bushi.
The samurai were a class of people who served the aristocracy with arms.
The last Japanese samurai in color images, 1860-1900
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