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Jealous to
Genji's Other Women
Jealousy was believed to arise from
spiritual evils, and culturally, men and women were encouraged to
erase
the emotion from their hearts, no matter what it cost or how much
it shackled their psychological health.
In the Tale of Genji, Genji was
allowed to have multiple lovers under polygamy and conducted sideline
relationships with concubines and mistresses with discretion. On the other
hand, that were women who had to keep jealousies of the Genji's
other mistresses inside themselves.
One of Genji's lovers, Lady Rokujo, was so intensely jealous of Genji's wife
that she left her body spiritually in order to possess and
physically kill her female rival. Lady Rokujo also died, but her
jealous spirit lingered to haunt Genji's women.@
These images depict the car
accident between the groups of Lady Rokujo and Lady Aoi. The aggressive attitude by Aoi's side
hurt Lady Rokujo so much that she lost a control of her intense
emotion. Then the love toward Genji changed into animosity toward
his wife, Aoi.
Another episode of jealousy in the Tale of
Genji involved Yugiri and Kumoi-no-Kari.
Yugiri's wife, Kumoi-no-kari
was jealous when he spent time with Kashiwagi's widow, the Second
Princess. She scolded him for coming home late as she nurses a
fretful baby.
Here, Yugiri reads the letter from his lover's mother,
Miyasu-Dokoro, and Kumoi-no-kari tries to take if from him,
misunderstanding he is reading a love letter from his lover,
Ochiba-no-miya.
This is the same scene from a latter version of the Tale of Genji written during the Edo period, "Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji."
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