Читать книгу Chushingura; Or, The Treasury of Loyal Retainers - Shoraku Miyoshi - Страница 18

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But a merchant could only be a merchant; the strict social distinctions could no more than the hereditary character of family occupations be set aside. And the only place where the merchants could spend money lavishly without fear of the samurai and without distinction of classes, was the pleasure-quarters. The attitude of the people of that time towards those quarters was different to the attitude of men of the present time. Love between the sexes was condemned by the moral teaching of the time; and it was not to be thought of that men and women should exchange love of their own free will. Not only women, but men, usually left entirely to their parents the arrangements for their marriages; and when the husband and wife lived together, they appeared to the world somewhat in the relations of master and servant, however much they might really love each other. Some of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s plays depict men and women freed from all trammels and indulging in unfettered love. These plays won the admiration and sympathy of the world because they were written with peculiar skill by their great author. But otherwise, the people of the period regarded such characters as being immoral and licentious; and while they pitied them for their sufferings, they condemned no less their lack of chastity. In the pleasure-quarters was to be found a world free from social restraint and from fetters of morality, where could be seen women in their natural mood, untrammelled by restraints of any kind. These quarters were outlets for the depressed spirits caused by the pressure of the negative policy of the Tokugawa government, where all ranks and grades of society could associate freely and on equal terms. The quarters in Yedo, Kyoto, and Osaka were frequent subjects of plays and novels of the time; indeed, it may be said that more than half the literature of the Genroku period was devoted to these quarters and their inhabitants.