Ok! This is part 2 of talking about traditional Japanese women. When I left off in the last blog, I said a perfect wife is beautiful and takes perfect care of the house finances. In an average traditional middle class Japanese home, there is a male head, his wife, perhaps a geisha (or two), and some servants.
A word about geishas. It’s a common miss conception that geishas are just a *ahem* sexually partner for multiple males. Well, some, usually low class geishas, are just for sexual pleasure. However, a good geisha is more than that. Her duty is to make a man happy in anyway and that sometimes that includes *ahem* sex. A good geisha will be beautiful, skilled at sing, dancing, playing an instrument, an actress, flower arranging, doing the tea ceremony, good at jokes, and reading the moods of her clients to see what makes them happiest. Geishas usually will form a contract with one or several men and see to them when they request or always at a certain time. She gets paid for her duties and lives in what’s called a teahouse run by a female. The head of the teahouse takes care of the geishas’ finances and contracts.
A geisha will flirt and show her skills while a wife remains modest and quiet. It isn’t rare for a husband to love a geisha more than his wife. The geisha will openly visit her client and maybe is even friends with the wife. The husband employing a geisha is no big dirty secret. In fact, if a man is wealthy enough, it is expected that a man visits a teahouse one or two times.
Today, geisha are just entertainers performing on a stage.
In my last post I may have seemed hard on the men of that time. I might have portrayed them as boaster and such. However, the men had worries of their own. They had to guard and protect their higher ups. The consequences for hurting their higher up (be it shamefully, physically or economically) were harsh. They could have their land taken away from them, their house, food, servants, or even their life.
(361 words)
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