Why Are There No Spinsters in Japan?

Abstract

The Western European folk model of spinsterhood portrays the spinster as a woman who eschews marriage because of economic difficulties or who deliberately chooses a career other than marriage. How does this model fare in other societies? Using population registers covering a single village in Japan in the preindustrial period (1671-1871), this paper finds that spinsters are rare. There are few economic bars to marriage, but, more importantly, there are no careers for unmarried women. They do not serve as domestic servants or as sur rogates in other roles in the household; they do not occupy specialist helping roles, and they do not become religieuses. On the contrary, even women whose prospects are slim are deliberately placed in households as married women. Hence, spinsterhood in Western Europe is an anomaly. Its existence must be ex plained, not assumed.

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