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is an ancient
Japanese custom usually practiced by young unmarried men and women. It was once common all over Japan and was practiced in some rural areas until the beginning of the
Meiji era
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.
The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization b ...
and even into the 20th century.
Description
At night, young unmarried men would silently enter houses with young unmarried women. A man would silently crawl into a woman's room and make his intentions known. If the woman consented, they would sleep together. By the morning he would leave.
The girl's family might know about it, but pretend they did not.
It was common for young people to find a husband/wife like this.
According to
ethnologist
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...
Akamatsu Keisuke, the practice varied from place to place. In some places any post-puberty woman, married or unmarried, could be visited by any post-puberty man, married or unmarried, from the village and even by men from other villages and travellers. In some places, only married women and widows could be visited, while single girls could not. And there were variations; for example, the "closed type" yobai was a custom in which only men from the same village had the right of visitation.
See also
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Night hunting, Nepal
References
Sources
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Japanese traditions
Japanese folklore
Sexuality in Japan
Human sexuality
Night in culture
Sleep