The Sad Shadow of the Scattered Tea Girls: The Backside of the Edo Pleasure Village, 17th-19th Centuries

The Sad Shadow of the Scattered Tea Girls: The Backside of the Edo Pleasure Village, 17th-19th Centuries

Scattered tea girls were the poorest of the poor during the Edo period (1603-1868), and their name derives from the word "scattered tea," meaning tea leaves. In contrast to the more formal prostitutes such as tayu and latticework girls, they were not associated with the glamor of Yoshiwara, and took customers at the foot of bridges, on riverbanks, in huts on rice terraces, and in rice-cake inns. Their fees were inexpensive, their relationships were only temporary, their clothing was shabby, they often fell ill, and they were forced to lead unstable lives as they wandered from place to place.

In comparison with other prostitutes, tayu were considered cultural symbols for wealthy merchants and feudal lords, while latticework girls were middle-class and available even to townspeople, and nighthawks, although not officially licensed, were in demand by the general public. Scattered tea girls sold themselves under the same or lower conditions as night hawks, and the level of disdain for them was high. The emergence of these designations reflected the strict hierarchical consciousness of Edo society and served to make poor women visible. They often appeared in willow poems and essays, and were treated as symbols depicting the lights and shadows of Yoshiwara.

The presence of children was also problematic. At the time, contraceptive methods were scarce and children were sometimes born, but the survival rate of infants was extremely low due to poor medical care and living conditions. If a woman could not afford to raise a child, the child was left at a temple's child-rearing center, and the child was accepted at a temple of abandonment or nunzuke-ji. Children of tayu and latticeworkers sometimes received support, but children of sancha joshi rarely received protection and were rarely recorded. Thus, the scattered women and their children were the most invisible figures in Edo urban society, symbolizing the reality of poverty and women.