Changes

The Ôoku was the large rear area of the ''honmaru'' (main) palace at [[Edo castle]], and was the center of women's residences and activities within the castle. It included the living spaces of the [[shogun|shogun's]] wives and concubines, their attendants, and other women associated with the castle, and was off-limits to nearly all men, the shogun himself being one of the few exceptions.

The Ôoku was the large rear area of the ''honmaru'' (main) palace at [[Edo castle]], and was the center of women's residences and activities within the castle. It included the living spaces of the [[shogun|shogun's]] wives and concubines, their attendants, and other women associated with the castle, and was off-limits to nearly all men, the shogun himself being one of the few exceptions.

In the 1850s, some one thousand women lived in the Ôoku; of them, some 185 were attendants directly in the shogun's service, while the majority of those remaining were attendants in the service of the shogun's mother, wife, or concubines, or female staff hired by the attendants.

In the 1850s, some one thousand women lived in the Ôoku; of them, some 185 were attendants directly in the shogun's service, while the majority of those remaining were attendants in the service of the shogun's mother, wife, or concubines, or female staff hired by the attendants.<ref name=corbett>Rebecca Corbett, ''Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan'', University of Hawaii Press (2018), 118-119.</ref>

The women of the Ôoku maintained a complex hierarchy amongst themselves. The shogun's primary wife, known as ''midai-sama'' or ''[[midai-dokoro]]'', was at the top of this hierarchy. Others who had given birth to the shogun's children were one rung below the ''midai'', and were known as ''[[oheya]]'' (lit. "room") as they were entitled to their own private rooms within the palace.

The women of the Ôoku maintained a complex hierarchy amongst themselves. The shogun's primary wife, known as ''midai-sama'' or ''[[midai-dokoro]]'', was at the top of this hierarchy. Others who had given birth to the shogun's children were one rung below the ''midai'', and were known as ''[[oheya]]'' (lit. "room") as they were entitled to their own private rooms within the palace.<ref>Cecilia Segawa Seigle, “Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and the Formation of Edo Castle Rituals of Giving,” in Martha Chaiklin (ed.), ''Mediated by Gifts: Politics and Society in Japan 1350-1850'', 135.</ref> The ''[[joro otoshiyori|jorô otoshiyori]]'', or "female Elders," were another group of authority figures within the Ôoku. Below them were some eighteen other ranks or categories of Ôoku women, each of whom enjoyed stipends paid out in a combination of rice and gold.<ref name=corbett/>