In the autumn of 1850 in Japan,
a woman named Kane rushed into a Buddhist temple.
She told the officials there that she had a problem.
You see, she had a caring husband.
He cared a lot about prostitutes.
Her husband, Kanjirō, spent his days at brothels
and his nights not coming home,
preferring the scent of wildflowers over the flower in his own house.
Now prostitutes tend to suck your money away.
Kane had to sell some of her clothing and ask her father for rice.
Say what you want about Kanjirō,
but he was the best husband an abusive father could ask for his daughter.
He beat her when she refused to get more money from her dad.
He tried to get her to sell her own body to other men,
and even wanted to sell her off like a second-hand kimono.
And so Kane wanted a divorce.
The temple officials heard her accusations
and ordered Kanjirō to come explain himself.
But he flipped the script, accusing her of having an affair
and stealing his money and coat when she ran away,
though he still didn’t want a divorce.
The temple guys turned into archaeologists and dug deep into the case,
really pushing for Kane to get that divorce.
In the end, they ordered Kanjirō to sign the divorce paper,
and ordered Kane to spend 2 years in the temple.
The old documents end there.
We don’t know the final chapter of this story,
but I think we can bet that they followed temple orders.
Kane stayed 2 years in the temple and got her divorce.
Now I know the viewers of this channel are smart and curious,
so you’ll have a lot of questions,
like why was the temple so pro-divorce?
How could the temple give orders to random people like that?
And how good were Kanjirō’s prostitutes, like damn?
Those are killer queries, you curious kitsune.
Hold on to your kids, because we about to get divorced,
but it’s okay, you’ll be left with an alimony of knowledge.
In Japan’s history,
temples have always been places of refuge and compassion,
for the hungry, the vulnerable,
and the occasional murderer on the run.
And female temples, the ones with nuns in them, offered shelter for women in need.
Divorce among the samurai class was a whole big thing.
Both families negotiated a deal, then had to notify the government.
But for commoners, only the husband could initiate a divorce.
Traditionally, he just wrote a letter of divorce, called a mikudarihan 三行半,
meaning literally “three and a half lines.”
It was a short note of about 3 and a half lines saying he wanted to separate,
usually including a simple reason like “My wife is selfish,”
or “She ain’t wifey material.”
And they both signed.
However, if a wife really wanted out but couldn’t convince her husband,
she could run to a nunnery.
These temples were already helping women,
it made sense to add a bonus service to their list of services:
help with divorce.
Splitting up from your husband was humiliating
and a critical hit to your status,
but women with marriages as happy as a kamikaze flight
were willing to pay the price.
Here’s a drawing of a wife running to a temple, with her man chasing after.
They said if you stepped in a divorce temple, you were safe from your husband.
But why is she throwing her sandals through the temple gates?
To make sure she technically stepped inside.
“One small step for a woman, one giant leap from your abusive ass.”
Once she was in, she would shave her head bald as a Laughing Buddha
and become a nun for 3 years,
because obviously you can’t be a Mrs. if you’re a sister.
Afterwards, by temple law, the marriage was dropped like a hot takoyaki
and the woman could rejoin her life outside.
These divorce temples were called enkiridera 縁切り寺,
or temple of cutting ties.
Like cutting the ties that bound you to your husband.
In the Edo Period (1603 - 1868), the government thought temples were too uppity
and closed the fist of regulation around Buddhist temples,
and used a free finger to flick away their divorce privileges.
Only two great divorce temples remained,
Tōkeiji 東慶寺 and Mantokuji 萬徳寺,
because they were cozy with the ruling Tokugawa family,
where much of their power and money came from.
After a woman entered a divorce temple,
the temple authorities protected her from any husbands or husband family members
wanting to bring her home with a katana.
The people handling her case were the male officials running the temple
rather than the nuns who did all the religious Buddha stuff.
First, they asked if she really, really wanted a divorce,
to which she probably replied, “Why am I here?”
They might even invite a family member to convince her to drop it,
to which she probably replied, “Why am I here?”
Next, the officials acted as a mediator
between her family and the husband’s family.
Although she kicked off the process, it was her family that negotiated for her.
The temple really wanted these discussions to succeed,
but if the talks hit a brick wall, never fear, there was a detour.
The officials would try one more time, sending a nice,
official looking letter to the husband telling him they’re gonna pay him a visit.
Divorce temples were sanctioned by the government,
enjoying the full authority of the state.
They were not above flexing their phalluses at the husband,
hoping to scare him into getting it done.
They might even tell local officials to
make sure he was home the day of the visit.
But if even that didn’t work, if he was one stubborn,
marriage vow loving mfer,
the temple had one last resort:
the temple law divorce.
Like nunneries before the Edo Period, they promised the wife a divorce,
but she had to stay at the temple for a while, not as a nun,
just somewhere on the nun-wife spectrum.
She cut her hair short, but didn’t shave it.
Hair was an important symbol of her in-between status.
One woman unhappy with her marriage sent her husband a letter asking for divorce,
and placed in it hairpins and strands of her hair,
letting him know that she was really done with him.
A woman staying at a divorce temple would do regular,
important nun stuff like chanting prayers, cleaning,
and gossipping about the monks at the neighboring temple.
“Check out the dreamy voice of Brother Gochi chanting. Ahh..”
“If the path to enlightenment includes a monk like him,
I’d happily make a pit stop.”
“Sister!”
After her stay, the temple gained the power
to force her husband to write the divorce letter,
and he had to do it unless he was curious to see what a prison cell looked like.
It wasn’t uncommon for the woman’s family
to pay consolation fees to the husband’s family.
Early on, Tōkeiji made a woman serve 3 years at the temple to gain her divorce,
then changed it in the 1740s to 2 years.
Mantokuji made her serve 3 to 5 years, but later shortened it to 25 months.
Also in Mantokuji, both wife and husband could not remarry
while she was in the temple,
though he could still agree to divorce during that time
and then they would be free to remarry.
After the nunnery service, she became a happily divorced woman.
Roads of possibilities lay before her,
most closed for service because she was a divorced woman.
So just stay a few years in a temple and get your divorce, right?
Sounds easy enough,
and it was, but there were cases of women getting tossed out for bad behavior.
One woman tried to be clever and had her
brother-in-law pretend to be her husband in negotiations.
Temple officials showed her the design of their front gate and then closed it.
“My child, the truth rings as clear as a temple bell,
but yours is a broken gong.”
If the temple got her a divorce, and she came back later asking for another,
the temple officials would gladly welcome her in
and call her an evil woman to be taking advantage
of Buddha’s infinite compassion like that,
then give her an enlightening kick out the gate.
So what if the couple had children?
Children were precious.
They made life better in so many ways,
like they could be an heir or be a pawn in political marriages.
They were super useful.
Custody battles have claimed the lives of many.
By default, the husband had custody of any children,
but families are complicated and husbands often had to fight for it,
and many actually found allies in these temples.
Some guys had zero clout in the family,
especially if they were adopted into the family.
So when the wife wanted divorce,
he could refuse hoping his wife would go to a divorce temple.
Because the temple might be more fair to him than the wife’s family,
giving him a better hand in custody poker.
For all the help that they could give,
most women didn’t have access to these divorce temples.
Only two main ones existed in the Edo Period, Tōkeiji and Mantokuji.
So tough luck if you lived far away.
You also had to pay.
For Mantokuji, the fees were mainly for food and daily living expenses,
but staying there for a year added up,
although there was no record of someone being denied
or kicked out because they couldn’t pay.
Tōkeiji was worse.
You had to pay the usual fees, plus a large initial donation.
Women were ranked according to their generosity.
Those who paid more were given cushier tasks,
while those who paid less spent their days sweeping and cleaning Buddha’s ass.
It was mostly higher class commoners who entered divorce temples.
Women whose pockets were on a diet were not willing to cough up the money.
Instead, they relied on divorce rituals.
One common trick was to peel the bark of a nettle tree,
grinding it into powder, and putting it in the husband’s food.
Nettle trees were thought to shorten marriages.
Besides nunneries, there were other safe havens for women looking to split.
Local government officials, village chiefs, some samurai,
and even some male temples opened their doors for divorce seekers.
Yep, some monks were actually a great help to women when they’re not
busy bedding little boys.
Of course, threats from your family also worked,
and probably the first thing to look into.
After Edo came the Meiji Period (1868 - 1912),
when the government allowed for women to file for divorce with the state,
making divorce temples obsolete.
Temples have always been a big part of Japanese history.
Here, they helped women escape from unwanted marriages.
Temples also helped educate young samurai boys in the past,
but sometimes treated them in ways that would make you gag.
Click here to see what I mean.
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