Waxing Samurai, Waning Women: Causes and Consequences of the Rise of the Samurai in Japan

• Published: 12 May 2025 • • Last updated: 12 May 2025 • • Written: 12 October 2024 •

(This entry is part of an ongoing series of papers I've written for various assignments. It is not necessarily representative of my beliefs; only my effort.)

Waxing Samurai, Waning Women: Causes and Consequences of the Rise of the Samurai in Japan

The samurai are among the most iconic and fascinating of Japan’s cultural symbols, but just as fascinating is their evolution and rise to prominence, and the consequences for Japanese society. Shaped by continuing technological trends, the succession dispute and subsequent Genpei War, and the Mongol Invasions, the rise of the samurai also triggered the decline of women in government and society.

The existence of the samurai class was, to an extent, a continuation of technological and social trends that had persisted since the end of the archaic Jōmon period—increasingly complex technologies, bureaucracies, and means of waging war. The horse had arrived in Japan from Korea in the year 450 CE, birthing the concept of mounted warfare, but the costs of owning a horse and training with it were “five times the annual income of a peasant” (Farris 81), constraining the possibility of becoming a mounted warrior to “local notables and certain members of the service nobility” (Farris 81). Furthermore, technologies that would become indispensable to the samurai, such as leather armor and curved swords, were gradually developed through centuries of warfare (Farris 82). Thus, the portrait of the samurai—a mounted warrior, armed with a bow and a curved sword, hailing from a distinct social class—began to take form.

The increasing political relevance and strength of the warrior class set the stage for a chain of events that would culminate in the creation of a dyarchy between Kyoto (formerly called Heian), the imperial capital, and Kamakura, the soon-to-be shogunate capital (Farris, 111). Lasting from 1180-1185 CE, the Genpei War was an armed conflict between the Minamoto and the Taira, two aristocratic families that both claimed to be the rightful successors to the imperial throne in Kyoto. And although the succession dispute that seeded the conflict was conceptually aristocratic, “[at] the heart of the war was the question of the proper role and reward for the military leg of the trifunctional elite” (Farris 108), with this “trifunctional elite” consisting of the aristocrats, the clergy, and the warrior class.

As the conflict progressed, it appeared that an answer to the question at the heart of the war had emerged. “Prior to 1180, warriors had served as officials in the provincial headquarters or as on-site landlords in estates” (Farris 108), but they made little money and could be easily dismissed by the more prestigious aristocrats. That changed under Minamoto Yoritomo, leader of the victorious Minamoto family, who gained many followers during the Genpei War and created a “military government based in Kamakura” (109). Much of Yoritomo’s popularity stemmed from his efforts to enfranchise his followers in a manner that also legitimized his military government as an authoritative body, such as levying taxes at a low 2%, or setting up neutral courts to settle land disputes. Additionally, the military government guaranteed that Yoritomo’s samurai supporters would receive consistent salaries, and tasked them with shipping rent to aristocrats and clergies, thus elevating the warrior class and solidifying its position as an equal among the trifunctional elite. In 1192, after the Genpei War had concluded, Yoritomo was named the first shōgun (“great general”) by Kyoto, and commanded the new shogunate out of his base in Kamakura (Farris 111).

In tandem with the social trends that led to the rise of the samurai, the role of women in government and society diminished. The increasing, wartime-induced emphasis on the warrior, and the rise of a military government in Kamakura created a form of battle where “the identity of the enemy was all important, a deadly dance aiming to establish hierarchy and dominance among males” (Farris 100-101). The apex position of the warrior in society was not just a matter of national security, but a matter of honor for the family and the individual. Land, property, and heritage were all interconnected, so increasingly, to ensure that future estate owners would have enough wealth to train as a samurai and keep the loyalties of feudal vassals, many samurai families copied aristocratic families, and adopted unigeniture (Farris 122), or the inheritance of the whole estate by one son. This trend sidelined women in politics and government through the loss of property rights and the introduction of dependency on their husband’s statuses, but it also reinforced the relationship between non-inheriting sons and their feudal lords, whose protection they would seek out in lieu of inheriting their father’s estates (Edgar 316). It is perhaps ironic that the women whose lives were least affected by these changes were commoners, where “the patterns of previous ages probably held sway” and women “engaged in the hard work of farming, salt making, ceramic manufacture, and trade, right along with men” (Farris 105).

Bibliography

Edgar, Robert R. “Culture, Power, and Trade in the Era of Asian Hegemony, 220-1350.” Civilizations Past & Present, 12th ed., I&II, Pearson, London, England, 2007, pp. 308–316.

Farris, William Wayne. “Rising Social and Political Tensions in an Epoch of Minimal Growth, 1050–1180.” Japan to 1600, Illustrated ed., University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, Hawai’i, 2009, pp. 81-106.

Farris, William Wayne. “Economy and Society in an Age of Want, 1180–1280.” Japan to 1600, Illustrated ed., University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, Hawai’i, 2009, pp. 82–135.