“Knowing the [Confucian] Way” and the Political Sphere

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a commoner’s family that chose the pursuit of Neo-Confucianism as a path by which to enter the political sphere of samurai society. The three sons of Rai Matajūrō (1707–1783) were able to earn a living from their cultivation of Confucian studies, and two of them rose to the rank of samurai. Although Japanese society of the Edo period was officially ruled by status and heredity, individuals from the geographical and social periphery were still able to gravitate toward the political center, as recent scholarship has shown. The chapter follows the career of one individual whose path, with its various twists and turns, is well documented. Rai Matajūrō’s oldest son Rai Shunsui (1746–1816) has left us a detailed record of his upward mobility, including consideration of the issues involved, when, as in his case, becoming a low-ranking samurai did not necessarily result in a better life for a commoner—in particular, when the commoner was capable and fortunate enough to succeed in following the path of a scholar. It will also show that, while social mobility was not a rare phenomenon amongst commoners and the lower ranks of the samurai, it remained restricted to the lesser ranks.