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senzenwomen2024-03-03 02:18 pm
nnozomi) wrote in senzenwomen2024-03-03 02:18 pm
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Hirose O-Tsune (1855-?)
[Sorry this is so late! Busy/sleepy/forgetful.]
Hirose O-Tsune (or Tsune, or Tsuneko) was born in 1855 to a family prominent under the bakufu government which fell on hard times during the Meiji Restoration. Seeing a path to an independent life, she attended the girls’ branch of the Temporary Pioneer School set up in Shiba, Tokyo, which was intended to train would-be pioneers to settle in Hokkaido (“temporary” because it was to move to Sapporo and become the precursor to Hokkaido University; it also included a wing for male and female Ainu students forcibly brought to Tokyo to study). The school taught languages, arithmetic, geography, history, and handicrafts to girls aged twelve to sixteen; O-Tsune, eighteen, lied about her age and entered in 1872. Not only would the government pay her tuition, but there were Dutch teachers from whom she could learn English and European ways. One of them offered to marry her; she turned him down, but he was persistent. Marriage to the up and coming young diplomat Mori Arinori seemed like the ideal way out.
Their 1875 marriage was considered extremely modern and unusual for involving a contract between the two parties, which stated among other things that the two parties should respect and love one another, that they had a duty of chastity [by which I assume they meant fidelity], that they shared equal rights to any assets owned by the couple, and that unilateral breach of contract could be met with an appeal to the law. This was Mori’s attempt to put his belief in monogamous marriage (as opposed to one wife and several concubines, the standard among well-to-do men at the time) into practice. Their wedding was witnessed by Fukuzawa Yukichi.
Two years after their marriage Mori became Ambassador to Qing China, and two years after that Minister to the United Kingdom. With her good English and personable ways, O-Tsune made an excellent diplomat’s wife (Ambassador to Japan Ernest Satow remarked on her beauty in his diary). O-Tsune and Mori had two sons born in England, who were named for their stations: 清 (Kiyoshi, or Qing) and 英 ([Suguru?], or England). A daughter called Yasu was also born before their return to Japan.
They returned in 1884, just in time to grace the Rokumeikan. In 1885 Mori became Minister of Education; the next year, however, they dissolved their marriage contract in a divorce. O-Tsune left her children with their father and disappeared. It is not known for certain a) why they divorced (Mori was to marry again later on) or b) what happened to her afterward. Theories on a) include that O-Tsune had had an affair in England, resulting in their daughter Yasu “being born with blue eyes,” or that, as her stepbrother Hirose Shigeo had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in a plan to assassinate Ito Hirobumi, she was deliberately saving Mori from disgrace.
As to what happened to her afterward, one rumor is that the Japanese woman registered in the Glasgow Medical School under the name of “Iga Mori” was in fact Tsune, but this is probably an error for the actual (male) Iga Mori, unrelated. No one knows where she ended up or when she died.
Sources
Nakae
https://note.com/rokurou0313/n/n9cf9ffb56c7f (Japanese) Article on a novel about O-Tsune and how much of it can be considered fact
http://whiteplum.blog61.fc2.com/blog-entry-3521.html?sp (Japanese) Short summary of O-Tsune’s life after returning to Japan
https://decolonization.jp/article/2487 (Japanese) Article on the Temporary Pioneer school’s Ainu students
Hirose O-Tsune (or Tsune, or Tsuneko) was born in 1855 to a family prominent under the bakufu government which fell on hard times during the Meiji Restoration. Seeing a path to an independent life, she attended the girls’ branch of the Temporary Pioneer School set up in Shiba, Tokyo, which was intended to train would-be pioneers to settle in Hokkaido (“temporary” because it was to move to Sapporo and become the precursor to Hokkaido University; it also included a wing for male and female Ainu students forcibly brought to Tokyo to study). The school taught languages, arithmetic, geography, history, and handicrafts to girls aged twelve to sixteen; O-Tsune, eighteen, lied about her age and entered in 1872. Not only would the government pay her tuition, but there were Dutch teachers from whom she could learn English and European ways. One of them offered to marry her; she turned him down, but he was persistent. Marriage to the up and coming young diplomat Mori Arinori seemed like the ideal way out.
Their 1875 marriage was considered extremely modern and unusual for involving a contract between the two parties, which stated among other things that the two parties should respect and love one another, that they had a duty of chastity [by which I assume they meant fidelity], that they shared equal rights to any assets owned by the couple, and that unilateral breach of contract could be met with an appeal to the law. This was Mori’s attempt to put his belief in monogamous marriage (as opposed to one wife and several concubines, the standard among well-to-do men at the time) into practice. Their wedding was witnessed by Fukuzawa Yukichi.
Two years after their marriage Mori became Ambassador to Qing China, and two years after that Minister to the United Kingdom. With her good English and personable ways, O-Tsune made an excellent diplomat’s wife (Ambassador to Japan Ernest Satow remarked on her beauty in his diary). O-Tsune and Mori had two sons born in England, who were named for their stations: 清 (Kiyoshi, or Qing) and 英 ([Suguru?], or England). A daughter called Yasu was also born before their return to Japan.
They returned in 1884, just in time to grace the Rokumeikan. In 1885 Mori became Minister of Education; the next year, however, they dissolved their marriage contract in a divorce. O-Tsune left her children with their father and disappeared. It is not known for certain a) why they divorced (Mori was to marry again later on) or b) what happened to her afterward. Theories on a) include that O-Tsune had had an affair in England, resulting in their daughter Yasu “being born with blue eyes,” or that, as her stepbrother Hirose Shigeo had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in a plan to assassinate Ito Hirobumi, she was deliberately saving Mori from disgrace.
As to what happened to her afterward, one rumor is that the Japanese woman registered in the Glasgow Medical School under the name of “Iga Mori” was in fact Tsune, but this is probably an error for the actual (male) Iga Mori, unrelated. No one knows where she ended up or when she died.
Sources
Nakae
https://note.com/rokurou0313/n/n9cf9ffb56c7f (Japanese) Article on a novel about O-Tsune and how much of it can be considered fact
http://whiteplum.blog61.fc2.com/blog-entry-3521.html?sp (Japanese) Short summary of O-Tsune’s life after returning to Japan
https://decolonization.jp/article/2487 (Japanese) Article on the Temporary Pioneer school’s Ainu students
no subject
I went off and did a little independent JSTOR diving about the forced education of Ainu students in Tokyo, which honestly was not terribly fruitful, but does make me feel a little more conversant with the issue.
no subject
I'm surprised and pleased to find there's anything about it in English! I didn't know about it at all. I'm looking for more Ainu women to add to the list now, having only had Chiri Yukie before...