Everyday Life in Edo - Everyday Life in Traditional Japan - page 181

(100) Pilgrimage to Ise.
A woman's pleasures lay mostly in her domestic duties, and in gossiping with her
neighbors at the pump or at the bathhouse. When she had a daughter-in-law to run the
home,shemightbeabletogoonBuddhisticexcursions,eithershortlocalonesorthemore
extended tours taking in, for example, the 33 Kannon of Kyūshū. She and her husband
might go off on a pilgrimage to Ise ( 100 ) or one of the other great shrines, though it was
equally probable that her husband might go without her, the better to enjoy the incidental
pleasures of the inns on the way, where maids were often accommodating, and of the en-
tertainment areasattheshrines.InthegreattownsofEdo,Kyoto,andOsaka,however,she
would be able to go to the theatre ( 101 ) . Particularly since the 1680s, women had formed
a large part of the audience, and to a certain extent the early tendencies of the live theatre,
with its representation of violence and overt eroticism had been adapted to a family audi-
ence. After an initial popularity in the seventeenth century,when the unsophisticated soldi-
ery and their counterparts among the townsmen had enjoyed blood and thunder plays, the
puppetdramahadmoreorlessdisappearedinEdo.Thethreelivetheatresinthecitysome-
timeschangedtheirsites,butwerealwayskeptneartoeachother,foreaseofcontrolbythe
authorities. Theatres closed in the summer, but for the rest of the year programs changed
everymonth,dependinguponthepopularityofthepieces;throughouttheperiodnewplays