Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the representations of unfaithful wives written by female writers. Although the Japanese modern penal code of 1880 considered criminal conversation punishable, the literary world was transgressing the bounds of decency, glorifying adultery in the name of 'true love'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores modern fluctuations in the notion of infidelity around 1910, focusing on the representations of 'unfaithful wives' written by female writers.

"Seitō (Blue Stocking)", the first Japanese literary magazine created by women in 1911, was an important social/literary contribution to the emergence of feminism in the country. However, the members of Seitō society and the magazine caught the curious, mocking eyes of the society at the time, causing some scandals and letting the magazine banned several times. It is notable that the first ban of the magazine in 1912 was for a short story in the April issue, Iku Araki's "Tegami (Letter)", which described a married woman's love for her young lover.

To understand Araki's motif, we should examine the Japanese enthusiastic reception of the Paolo and Francesca episode in Dante's "Divine Comedy". Rediscovered by the romantic artists, this episode of The Comedy attracted attention in nineteenth-century Europe. Although the Japanese modern penal code of 1880 considered criminal conversation punishable by a sentence of major imprisonment, the literary world was transgressing the bounds of decency, influenced by this romantic revival of the Western literary canon and glorifying adultery in the name of 'true love'.

'Loveless marriage has no power before true love' was indeed the basic principle of romantic love ideology. In the Japanese literary world, the empathy with this ideology idealized the longing for the true love, and surmounted the negative feeling towards adultery. In these circumstances, female writers searching for the subjectivity regarding love and marriage were encouraged to speak out. Kusuoko Otsuka created female characters who uninhibitedly voiced their own desires. Her 1908 novella "Soradaki (Incense burner)" depicted the love of a married woman, referring to a painting of Paolo and Francesca by G. F. Watts. On the first issue of "Seitō" (September 1911), Raichō Hiratsuka carried a declaration of women's rights, where she refers with emotion to Rodin's sculpture "The Kiss":an image of Paolo and Francesca. Hiratsuka's glorification of "The Kiss" might have been the affirmation of the passion of love, also implying the denial of the marriage system of the day.