On Butterfly's Geisha status and Pinkerton's bargain

The plot outline of Puccini's Madama Butterfly seems clear, especially regarding these two points:

• Cio-Cio-san is a young geisha
• Lt. Pinkerton is a callous, uncaring rat-fink who misleads a naïve teen-ager, entering into a marriage she thinks is real and which he plans to dishonor by abandoning her.

Both of these assumptions are open to question. To explore them, a bit of Japanese history must be reviewed. (Don't worry - I'll make it short!)

Geisha dress for tea ceremony

photo by Andrew, reproduced via

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic 

After the Emperor Meiji ascended the throne and defeated the Shogunate government in the civil war of 1867-1868, Japan was inundated with an influx of Westerners for the first time in centuries. The change in government meant that Japan was transitioning from a feudal society to a modern market economy. 

The fact is that Japanese women, who previously had few if any opportunities to improve their quality of life, were eager and willing to make themselves available to the merchants, sailors, educators and others from Europe and America; men who, by Japanese standards, were very wealthy.

There were thousands of Madame Butterflys.

And not one of them killed themselves when their temporary husbands left.

The explanation for Butterfly's reasons for suicide are complex and will require more than one blog post. This post will deal with Butterfly's claim that she is a geisha.

From the time of the Meiji Restoration through the turn of the century when Butterfly's story was told via Long's novella, Belasco's play and Puccini's opera, there were three classes in society for women like Cio-Cio-san:

1. Geisha. Geisha was a professional status dating back to 1703. To be a geisha was to occupy an honored place in society; geishas were highly trained in traditional music and dance, as well as social graces. The geisha provided refined, gracious entertainment. She could execute a flawless tea ceremony with perfect etiquette. There was no sexual component of the job.
2.  Rashamen. The rashamen were, in effect, "rental wives" who entered into contractual, totally legal temporary marriages with Western men looking for a woman to fulfill their physical and domestic needs. The rashamen cooked, kept house and slept with their partners. These marriages were overseen by the government. Both parties had obligations; for the man, it was largely financial. When the contract was up, the man would leave the woman a substantial sum of money and provide for any children that resulted. An early description of such an arrangement is in Pierre Loti's 1887 autobiographical novel Madame Chrysanthème.
3.  Yuio. These were common prostitutes, operating in the underbelly of society as in all cultures at all periods of history.

This sheds light on the first scene of dialogue between Pinkerton and his American friend Sharpless. It seems apparent that Pinkerton believes Cio-Cio-san is a rashamen wife. The marriage has been brokered by Goro; Pinkerton boasts that his contract calls for a term of 999 years with an option to leave at the end of any month - all for just 100 yen.

Doesn't it sound like Pinkerton believes he's doing what thousands of other Westerners had been doing for decades - and would continue to do so well into the 20th century? From his point of view, is he doing anything wrong? History would suggest we've judged him a bit harshly on this score. In fact, it becomes clear that he's shocked and remorseful when he learns that Butterfly thought their relationship was a genuine, permanent marriage.

Don't get me wrong: he's still a cad and a coward, running away rather than facing her, not to mention having promised to return "when the robins nest". Yeah, right....

So the remaining question: if she was entering into a rashamen marriage, why does Butterfly believe it's not and, importantly, why does she call herself a geisha?

In her powerful Act 2 aria "Che tua madre", she imagines her worst-case scenario: going back to the life of a geisha, singing and dancing to feed her child. But the way she describes such a future is problematic. She says she would be on the street, dancing "in the wind and the rain".

Hold it right there. She is NOT describing the life of a geisha; she's describing what musicians call "busking", like those sax players who blow their horns on street corners, hoping passers-by will toss some coins into the instrument case, or those fiddle players who play in subway stations. This is NOT how geishas entertained.

Is she dissembling? Is she not a geisha at all? Her back story, as supplied by Goro, likely gives us an explanation.

Goro whispers to Sharpless and the groom that Butterfly's family used to be wealthy until her father fell into disfavor with the Emperor and was ordered to commit hara-kiri. After that disgrace, we learn, the family fell upon hard times, living in poverty.

Butterfly likely reall was raised and trained to be a geisha. My theory, though it must be inferred from the libretto, never stated out-right, is that in calling herself a geisha, Butterfly is clinging to past status as a woman of honor, unwilling to embrace the fall from grace. Indeed, she does not divulge the truth about her father's fate when asked; she simply responds with one word: "morto".

So my theory is that this young lady, only 15 years old with a teen-ager's universal ability to deny reality, is living in a fantasy: "I'm a geisha and now I'm marrying this god-like American and we will grow old together."

That leaves us with another question we must answer: why does she kill herself? Also, why does she take her (clearly) rashamen marriage seriously, unlike the real-life Cio-Cio-sans of history? My theories will be forthcoming, but first I'll post three essays parsing her three big arias. Next week: "Ancora un passo or via".