Ōoku
Former women's quarters of Edo Castle / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Ōoku (大奥, "great interior") was historically the women's quarters of Edo Castle, the section where the women connected to the reigning shōgun resided. Similar areas in the castles of powerful daimyō, such as the Satsuma Domain, were also referred to by this term.[1]
During the reign of the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, Ōoku was established in Edo Castle as a women's room where his official wife (御台所, Midaidokoro), Oeyo, resided. During the reign of the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, the Ōoku was expanded at the suggestion of his nanny, Lady Kasuga, to ensure the birth of a male heir to the shogun's lineage, and became a vast shogun's harem with nearly 1,000 women working as maidservants.[2][3][4]
The Ōoku was inhabited by the official wife and concubines of the shogun. The women of Ōoku were highly hierarchical, with the official wife of the shogun, who was of aristocratic lineage, ruling at the top, and the older women who had served her for a long time actually controlling Ōoku. The women who worked as maidservants in Ōoku were daughters of the Hatamoto (旗本), a high-ranking class of samurai, and they had servants from the chōnin (町人, townspeoplle) and peasants who worked for them. Even low-ranking servants were treated as concubines of the shogun if they bore his children. One such example was Otama, the daughter of a grocer, who gave birth to the fifth shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna.[2][3][4]
Men were generally forbidden to enter Ōoku; only the shogun, his sons, and boys under the age of nine who came to visit the maidservants were allowed. The highest official in the shogunate, the Rōjū (老中, Elder), could enter only when summoned on official business by the shogun's official wife, or a high-ranking woman in the Ōoku. However, men such as doctors, carpenters, and painters were also allowed to enter Ōoku as needed, and over time the number of men performing security, clerical, and other duties at Ōoku increased, albeit on a limited basis.[2][3][4]
The Ōoku was also used to ensure the Tokugawa shogun's rule over the country by arranging political marriages between the shogun's children and the children of daimyo in various regions. The Ōoku continued until 1868, when the Tokugawa shogunate was dissolved.[2][3][4]