senzenwomen | Ito Umeko (1848-1924)

Ito Umeko was born in 1848 in Shimonoseki at the southern tip of Honshu, the daughter of a poor stevedore named Kida. Sold at age seven to a geisha house, she was first known as Koume. As a geisha, her beauty and brains made her very popular. She met the Imperialist activist and proto-politician Ito Hirobumi in 1864, when he was twenty-four and had just returned from an illicit period of study in England. He was in Shimonoseki interpreting for the American and European forces which had just opened fire there; although he was already married, he fell in love with Koume and they began to live together in Shimonoseki. (The story is that she helped him hide from marauders from an enemy faction, but I suspect he had more standard business at the geisha house.) Ito himself was the child of a poor farmer who had made good studying with Yoshida Shoin, and their similar backgrounds, compared to the high birth of most of Ito’s colleagues, may have appealed.

Upon his divorce two years later, Umeko (having changed her name to one more appropriate to a respectable upperclass woman) became his second wife. She made every effort to live up to the requirements of the wife of a rising star, learning to read and write—with her husband’s carefully planned curriculum of love letters as her textbook—to the point that she was able to act as his secretary. She also studied poetry with Shimoda Utako (mastering waka so well she could chat about them with the Empress) and English with Tsuda Umeko (in which she was able to write letters). [Although this must have been somewhat later on, since the littler Ume didn’t come back to Japan from America until 1882].

In 1883 the Rokumeikan Hall opened in Tokyo, a symbol of the Meiji Restoration’s success and of the internationalization and capacity for Western-style gracious living of the Japanese ruling class. Its first soirée was held on November 28th and hosted 1,300 people. Umeko was there in style as the wife of the Prime Minister, considered a model of womanhood. However, her background lingered in a few ways: trained in Japanese dance, she was unwilling to attempt Western ballroom dancing, and she also preferred not to wear Western ballgowns which exposed the back, as they would reveal her moxibustion scars. When she did appear in Western dresses, she chose modestly high-necked varieties.

She and Ito had three children, of whom only their daughter Ikuko (born in 1868) survived babyhood. Ito Hirobumi was said to be such a womanizer that even the Meiji Emperor asked him to tone it down a little. Umeko remained at his side through his various affairs. Asked whom he respected most, he said “First the Emperor, next my old lady.” He tried to convince her to smoke less (she favored the pipe), and she retorted that she would quit smoking as soon as he stopped drinking.

Ito died in 1909, assassinated at Harbin Station by the Korean activist Ahn Jung-geun. Umeko survived him to live until 1924.

Sources
Ishii, Nakae
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/137575 (Japanese, pictures of Ito and Umeko in middle age, a letter from him to her, and the Rokumeikan)
https://jbpress.ismedia.jp/articles/-/67708?page=3 (Japanese, tabloid-ish article about how dissipated Ito Hirobumi was, but this page has a nice picture of Umeko in youth)