Princess Yoshiko (Arisugawa-no-miya)

Personal history

Yoshiko, the twelfth and youngest daughter of Prince Taruhito of the Arisugawa-no-miya family, was born of the union of her father and the courtesan Ando Kiyoko. She was called Princess Tomi (登美宮, Tomi no miya) as a child. She later moved to Edo from Kyoto, where her husband renamed her Teihoin (貞芳院) in case she were to be widowed. Upon her death, she was given the posthumous name Madam Bummei (文明夫人, Bummei fujin). She died in 1893 at the age of 88 in Tokyo. Tokugawa Yoshiko rests at the Zuiryusan temple, the official Bodhi temple of the Mito clan in Ibaraki Prefecture.

In 1830, at the age of 27, Yoshiko was engaged to Nariaki, who was 37 but had not yet had his first wife as he had become the head of his clan just the year before. Princess Takako was said to have arranged the marriage, and Emperor Ninkō was recorded as having issued an approving comment on the political and educational pedigrees of the Mito branch of the Tokugawa clan. The Mito branch was further renowned for having enthusiastically supported the imperial system for generations, and the emperor gladly approved of the marriage.

When Yoshiko moved to Edo and started leading the life of a samurai wife, she kept the attire of the imperial household for weeks after her marriage. In a portrait she posed for at the time, she wore a kosode and hakama, in the style of centuries past. In a letterbox with that portrait, Nariaki called his wife Yoshiko, instead Princess Yoshiko or other names. Among Nariaki's 37 children with four wives, Yoshiko was the mother of his first son, Yoshiatsu, his seventh son, Yoshinobu, and finally a daughter. A fourth child, born before Yoshinobu, died prematurely.

Yoshiko was known to be fluent in the arts, particularly waka poems, as well as Japanese calligraphy and the Arisugawa family heritage. Embroidery and playing music on the koto and the hichiriki were among her hobbies. After relocating to Mito from Edo, she learned to fish at the river by the castle.

Being an imperial princess and a sister-in-law of the twelfth shogun, Ieyoshi, high-ranking officials including Ii Naosuke and his followers in the Edo government were said to surveil her in case she advised either the shogun or the emperor on political issues. After Nariaki was charged during the Ansei Purge for taking part in anti-shogun movements and detained in Mito for life in 1859, it took her three months to obtain permission and move from Edo to Mito. Widowed the next year, Yoshiko followed samurai custom and cut her hair short and made a pabbajja, retiring from social activities, and was renamed as Teiho-in (貞芳院).