Editing Samurai (section)

==Women==
{{Main|Onna-musha}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=June 2023}}
[[File:Tomoe-Gozen.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Tomoe Gozen]] by Shitomi Kangetsu, {{Circa|18th century}}]]

Maintaining the household was the main duty of women of the samurai class. This was especially crucial during early feudal Japan, when warrior husbands were often traveling abroad or engaged in clan battles. The wife, or ''okugatasama'' (meaning: one who remains in the home), was left to manage all household affairs, care for the children, and perhaps even defend the home forcibly. For this reason, many women of the samurai class were trained in wielding a polearm called a ''[[naginata]]'' or a special knife called the ''[[Kaiken (dagger)|kaiken]]'' in an art called ''[[tantojutsu]]'' (lit. the skill of the knife), which they could use to protect their household, family, and honor if the need arose. There were women who actively engaged in battles alongside male samurai in Japan, although most of these female warriors were not formal samurai.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X7GHCwAAQBAJ|title=Samurai Women 1184–1877|last=Turnbull|first=Stephen|date=2012|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-78096-333-4|language=en}}</ref>

A samurai's daughter's greatest duty was [[political marriage]]. These women married members of enemy clans of their families to form diplomatic relationships. These alliances were stages for many intrigues, wars and tragedies throughout Japanese history. A woman could divorce her husband if he did not treat her well and also if he was a traitor to his wife's family. A famous case was that of [[Tokuhime (Oda)|Oda Tokuhime]] (daughter of [[Oda Nobunaga]]); irritated by the antics of her mother-in-law, [[Lady Tsukiyama]] (the wife of [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]]), she was able to get Lady Tsukiyama arrested on suspicion of communicating with the Takeda clan (then a great enemy of Nobunaga and the Oda clan). Ieyasu also arrested his own son, [[Matsudaira Nobuyasu]], who was Tokuhime's husband, because Nobuyasu was close to his mother Lady Tsukiyama. To assuage his ally Nobunaga, Ieyasu had Lady Tsukiyama executed in 1579 and that same year ordered his son to commit seppuku to prevent him from seeking revenge for the death of his mother.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}

Though women of wealthier samurai families enjoyed perks of their elevated position in society, such as avoiding the physical labor that those of lower classes often engaged in, they were still viewed as far beneath men. Women were prohibited from engaging in any political affairs and were usually not the heads of their household. This does not mean that women in the samurai class were always powerless. Samurai women wielded power at various occasions. Throughout history, several women of the samurai class have acquired political power and influence, even though they have not received these privileges ''[[de jure]]''.

After [[Ashikaga Yoshimasa]], 8th ''shōgun'' of the Muromachi shogunate, lost interest in politics, his wife [[Hino Tomiko]] largely ruled in his place. [[Nene (aristocrat)|Nene]], wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was known to overrule her husband's decisions at times, and [[Yodo-dono]], his concubine, became the ''de facto'' master of Osaka castle and the Toyotomi clan after Hideyoshi's death. [[Tachibana Ginchiyo]] was chosen to lead the Tachibana clan after her father's death. [[Yamauchi Chiyo]], wife of Yamauchi Kazutoyo, has long been considered the ideal samurai wife. According to legend, she made her kimono out of a quilted patchwork of bits of old cloth and saved pennies to buy her husband a magnificent horse, on which he rode to many victories. The fact that Chiyo (though she is better known as "Wife of Yamauchi Kazutoyo") is held in such high esteem for her economic sense is illuminating in the light of the fact that she never produced an heir and the Yamauchi clan was succeeded by Kazutoyo's younger brother. The source of power for women may have been that samurai left their finances to their wives. Several women ascended the [[Chrysanthemum Throne]] as a [[Empress of Japan|female imperial ruler]] (女性天皇, [[Josei Tennō|josei tennō]])

As the Tokugawa period progressed more value became placed on education, and the education of females beginning at a young age became important to families and society as a whole. Marriage criteria began to weigh intelligence and education as desirable attributes in a wife, right along with physical attractiveness. Though many of the texts written for women during the Tokugawa period only pertained to how a woman could become a successful wife and household manager, there were those that undertook the challenge of learning to read, and also tackled philosophical and literary classics. Nearly all women of the samurai class were literate by the end of the Tokugawa period.

<gallery mode="packed" style="text-align: center;" heights="180">
File:Kasuga no Tsubone (c. 1880).jpg|''[[Lady Kasuga|Kasuga no Tsubone]] fighting robbers'' – [[Adachi Ginkō|Adachi Ginko]] ({{Circa|1880}})
File:Hangaku Gozen by Yoshitoshi.jpg|[[Hangaku Gozen]] by [[Tsukioka Yoshitoshi|Yoshitoshi]], {{Circa|1885}}
File:Onodera Junai no tsuma 斧寺重内の妻 (No. 4, The Wife of Onodera Junai) (BM 2008,3037.15404).jpg|Japanese woman preparing for [[jigai|ritual suicide]]
File:Tomita Nobutaka and his wife Yuki no Kata defend Tsu Castle by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 1885.png|[[Yuki no Kata]] defending [[Tsu Castle]]. 18th century
File:Femme-samurai-p1000704.jpg|A samurai class woman
</gallery>