The ''Onna Daigaku'' ( or "The Great Learning for Women") is an 18th-century Japanese educational text advocating for neo-Confucian values in education, with the oldest existing version dating to 1729. It is frequently attributed to Japanese botanist and educator

Kaibara Ekken __NOTOC__ or Ekiken, also known as Atsunobu (篤信), was a Japanese Neo-Confucianist philosopher and botanist. Kaibara was born into a family of advisors to the ''daimyō'' of Fukuoka Domain in Chikuzen Province (modern-day Fukuoka Prefecture ...

Education of women

The ''Onna Daigaku'' is cited as Ekken's most popular book, which was often gifted to new brides due to its accessible tone and a lack of general instructional materials for new families. It teaches the moral need for total subordination of women to the needs to the husband and family. The book suggests that women are too stupid to trust themselves and must "distrust herself and obey her husband". Scholars point to the wide circulation of the text as reflective of

Edo-period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteri ...

misogyny Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practiced fo ...

. It was roundly criticized by advocates of women's education during the Meiji era.

Seven grounds for divorce

The book encourages several grounds for a husband to divorce his wife, including disobedience to her in-laws, infertility (unless a barren woman allows for adoption of a concubine's child), lewdness, jealousy, leprosy, talking too much, or compulsive thievery.

References

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Education of women

Seven grounds for divorce

References

Further reading