The Waiting Years

The Waiting Years is a work of historical fiction from the Japanese literary canon written by acclaimed Japanese author Fumiko Enchi. The book takes place in the early Meiji era of Japan, from 1868 to 1912. It follows Tomo and her husband, a mid-level government official and the ancestor of samurai, as their home fills with paid concubines, posing as maids, over the forty years of their marriage. Telling the story of female oppression in Japan during this period, the book was published in the late 1950s, a “half-way point” in the scope of Japanese feminism by the account of many scholars. The book talks not only about the oppression of the wife, Tomo, who must choose concubines for her husband, but also the stories of the young concubines themselves, many of whom are younger than fifteen when they are sold into wealthy households by their families.

The book begins when Yukitomo Shirakawa asks his young wife, Tomo, who is about ten years younger than him, to find him a maid and concubine. Yukitomo is a mid-level government official in Japan, sometimes considered elite and other times considered a low-level bureaucrat. He has little to no respect for his wife and child. At the time, it was customary for wealthy Japanese families to keep concubines to satisfy the sexual needs of the patriarchs. As the novel begins, Yukitomo tells Tomo that he must have a concubine in order to maintain respect among his colleagues, who have concubines. Jealous and angry, Tomo concedes – she has very little control over the affairs of the household, and despite her rage at the situation, she goes to one of the functionaries that control the sale of concubines, preparing to interview the girls.

As Tomo interviews the girls who will become concubines in her home, Enchi gives a glimpse both into the reality for these girls and for Tomo, who is forced to hold back her feelings as she imagines her husband having sex with all the women in front of her. Essentially sold into slavery by their families, the girls are trained to clean and to perform sexual functions for their masters, and then sold to a family, where they remain for their entire lives. After being sold, these girls, who average in age from thirteen to fifteen years old, are forced to stay under the thumb of their masters unless they can find a husband and marry.



Tomo eventually brings home a fifteen-year-old girl, Suga, who will pose as their maid. Suga quickly becomes a part of the household, building a relationship not only with Yukitomo, but also with Tomo and her young daughter, Etsuko. There is an unspoken suffering for both Tomo and Suga, and the assumption is made, though not explicitly stated, that Yukitomo is brutal and cruel in his sexual relations with both women. Tomo, though deeply unhappy and terrified she will lose all her husband's love to this young girl, Suga, maintaines the household, essentially raising this young maid, who is still only a child. Tomo feels resigned to her fate, and family life continues.

After a few years, Yukitomo adds another concubine to the household – this time, a girl named Yuri moves in. Yuri bonds quickly with Suga; the girls even wonder if they might have been sisters in another lifetime. A few years pass and the girls live happily together until Yuri gets married. Suga is devastated at the loss of her best friend, and she and Tomo have to deal with the addition of a replacement mistress to the house.

This time, Yukitomo chooses Miya, a flirtatious young girl who causes trouble for everyone in the home. At this point, Tomo is getting quite old and has gained weight, and the young girls and Yukitomo find her dowdy and unattractive. Suga, however, is not particularly young anymore either, and Yukitomo points this out to her after Miya enters their home. Yukitomo tells his first mistress that she is likely too old to get married now and that her irregular periods make it unlikely that she'll ever have a baby. Devastated, Suga resigns herself to the fate that Yukitomo has left for her – keeping Tomo company and providing another hand in the care of his daughter, Etsuko.



Forty years pass, and the family life is described in detail, with a particular attention to the trauma and sadness of the women in the house. At the end of the book, Tomo sees only a glimpse of a modernized Japan, where women's rights are a central focus. The book ends with her death, and the realization that her life, though long and by the eyes of many men complete, was totally unrealized, and that she spent the majority of her days bitterly unhappy.

Fumiko Enchi is one of the most prominent female novelists of the Showa period in Japan. She has written a number of novels, plays, and short stories. In her lifetime, she won the Women's Literature Prize in 1955 and 1966, the Noma Literary Prize in 1957 for the publication of The Waiting Years, a Tanizaki Prize, and a Japanese Order of Culture in 1985, just a year before her death.