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Dividers by @/uzmacchiato

Marriage of Nobles in Heian Era

With the exception of arranged marriages, here's how the aristocrats in Heian Era usually get married:

Man courts the lady via intermediary

The lady (and her family) accepts the man's courting and proposal

Wedding Ceremony: Man will visit the lady and spend the night for three nights

Wedding Reception: The families will celebrate the marriage

#1 & 2: Courting & Accepting the Proposal

The man will send an intermediary (usually a servant from his household) to send his poetry to the woman he wants to wed. Then, the woman's mother (and her besties) will judge the man's character through the poetry he sent [or if the woman is independent, divorced and/or working at the court as a lady-in-waiting or what not, the woman will personally judge]. Is the poem beautiful? Is his calligraphy impeccable? Is the paper high quality, and does it smell good?

Genji's son Yūgiri (夕霧; "Evening Mist") reads a letter. Genji Monogatari Emaki, 12th century handscroll, Gotoh Museum.

If he fails in one of these criteria, forget marriage - the family (or the woman) dumps him. Hey, but if they see that those three are at least satisfactory enough and they approve, then they give the poem to the woman who is the intended recipient so she can see and if she likes it, she or a female member of the family will send a reply via her servant from her household. If the man sees the reply to be satisfactory, then he will continue courting the woman.

This courting period can last for months or years. Once the woman accepts and all parties agree to the marriage, the wedding ceremony goes through.

#3: Wedding Ceremony: Spending Three Nights Together

Once the proposal is accepted, they move to the next step - the wedding ceremony. At this time period, the ceremony isn't something like the Shinto wedding that we see these days. The wedding is basically unceremonious and doesn't need any documents to register it.

So, the man visits the woman at her home - almost always her family's - at night, goes to her room, and spends the night with her. This is basically a 'secret' visit [both families of the groom and bride are aware lmao]. The first night is the first opportunity for him to see what she actually looks like because now, there's no screen or blinds hiding her from him.

(Also, the man uses his hakama or whatever the outermost jacket part of his kimono is called as the futon for the two of them)

So this goes on for three nights, with the man leaving the woman's home at dawn in the first two nights and sends a morning-after poem to her through a messenger. The family, then, offers wine and presents to the messenger who delivers these poems.

During these three nights they spend together, they...... indulge in passion..... and have sex........ at least that's what was expected of them...... yeah.......

You can basically say that the ceremony is mostly...... them having sex and doing the lewd things like making out........ unless you also count talking while holding hands????

Anyways, so on the third night - called tokoroarawashi or "exposure of the event" - the he stayes by her side until daylight, where he would be 'discovered' by the woman's parents. Then the couple would be offered breakfast with rice cakes called mikayamochi or "third night cakes", which the family prepared during the night. These mochis represent the married gods Izanami and Izanagi.

And that's it for the wedding ceremony.

#4: Wedding Reception

Even though everyone in the streets should know about the marriage between the man and the lady because word travels very fast, the couple (with the help of their families, mostly the lady's side though) would tend to host a feast some time over the few days after the ceremony just to show off. That is, if they can afford it.

So a wedding reception includes a simple Shinto rite conducted by a Shinto priest, and other rituals related to marriage. The man, the groom, 'officially' meets his in-laws in this occasion.

So pretentious

That's it for the most part..... aside from the food, I can imagine they would also have group poetry session, dances, music, games, contests, archery, or whatever the families could afford.

That concludes the marriage of nobles in Heian era.

Sources: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]

Chapter 217 - The Marriage Proposal of Yorozu to Sukuna

Now, I'll start actually translating and analyzing, using our knowledge of Heian era and the info you just learned above.

#1 & 2: Courting & Accepting the Proposal

So we know that Heian marriage starts with courting initiated by the man.......... but we know that's not the case here because Yorozu took on the role of the man for this role.

Yorozu: It's love. Love. [Refers to Yorozu recognizing Sukuna in his vessel instantly] Within the precepts and the loathing that comes from it, nothing could surpass love. Yorozu: Say, Sukuna. I want to be the one to kill you, I want you to be the one to kill me. Even so, if you are still alive after I win, what will you give me? Sukuna: Everything. It's an impossible occurrence, but if it's the case that I lose, I might as well be dead. Yorozu: *pauses* Then, then. Even something like ma- ma- ma- ma- ma- marriage? Sukuna: Do what you want.

Basically the courting is a battle to the death, and the condition of the marriage is if Yorozu and Sukuna are both alive, which both parties have agreed to.

I mean Yorozu's love goes back to Heian era in the year 1000s, as depicted in chapter 219, so who knows if she had proposed to him or sent letters to him sometime after this:

JJK Chapter 219

I won't be surprised if this was the culmination of the years Yorozu courted Sukuna in their lifetimes and the 'revitalization of love after more than 1000 years of separation from each other' (-Yorozu, probably).

Also, she also has another condition in her marriage proposal:

Yorozu: I'll be the primary wife!! Concubines or anything similar are not allowed (ever or else)!!

Yorozu wants to be the only wife and the primary wife at that. Being the primary wife means she will be the priority in his visits. You see, in the Heian era, the wife doesn't move into the husband's household.... they live separately for a long time. They live in their homes where they grew up in. The husband usually visits the wife/wives (whether primary or secondary) and his lovers at night in their households, then leaves at dawn.

As the primary wife, the husband would have to visit her the most out of his wives and lovers, and if the time comes when they decide to live together (usually years after their marriage), the husband either: moves either into his primary wife's residence, or to a separate residence that's usually provided by either the wife's or husband's family (or the husband himself if he is rich, which is rare). Very rarely the wife moves into her husband's home. If not, they can choose to live separately until the end.

So if Yorozu was, hypothetically speaking, the primary and only wife, then Sukuna would have to visit her very often, and obviously would have to eventually move into her house, if we're going to follow the nobility customs. As his primary and only wife, Sukuna's clothes would have been made by her, and economically he would be dependent on her (not that it mattered).

But knowing Yorozu, she'd be the one visiting him and moving into his home....... if he has one. [did Sukuna even have one, though, when she met him in Heian era?] And clothes? Forget it - Sukuna is a minimalist and Yorozu loves being naked.

And no concubines meant no secondary wives, so that meant his attention to her won't be divided and he won't need to leave her, worry about whether he'll visit her at sunset, nor would she have to kill to maintain her place as the primary wife.

#3: Wedding Ceremony: Spending Three Nights Together

Now this is where it gets........ disturbing.......

Yorozu: For our wedding ceremony, let us destroy three villages at the very least.

We still remember the traditional Heian wedding, right?

They would have had to spend three nights together. So, while in this panel, Yorozu proposes that they destroy three villages at the bare minimum, it has disturbing implications.

So for one, as part of the wedding ritual, they would have to destroy one village per night. BUT, Sukuna is the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in Heian era and Yorozu is a strong one, too, so destroying villages won't take long at night. So for the rest of the night after........... you get the gist.

This is the one time where I'm so, so glad Sukuna clocked her and beat her ass up. The fact that their vessels are step-siblings makes this interaction pseudo-incest.

So.... yeah..... glad it didn't and will never happen.

That One Translation Mistake by both VIZ & Unofficial Scans

Remember that we are still looking into Yorozu's marriage proposal.

#4: Wedding Reception

This is a bit of a feature because I need to clarify what Yorozu was talking about. The translators, both official and unofficial, have made mistakes.

So let's first look at the English translations:

JJK Chapter 217Left: Viz Translation (Official ENG TL) Right: Unofficial Scans (Unofficial ENG TL)

These are both the right in that Yorozu was talking about the fun part of what would be their wedding reception, that they'll have the shrunken head or decapitated head of the handsome man, and that they'll write poem. But here's where they messed up: that they would only take the most handsome man in the village, and that they'll write Haiku, which is what annoys me the most.

Here's the translation of this panel - I will feature MegKuna's face because it's so funny:

Yorozu: For the entertainment part [of the wedding reception], we should make shrunken heads of the most handsome man in those villages, and write poetry with everyone about their appearances that gradually changes.

It's funny how the unofficial scans captured almost the entire meaning/translation of this panel better than the official translations, but yeah, there are just a couple of mistakes.

So first off, one thing that you have to keep in mind is that the Japanese language relies a lot on context, and ir almost always don't indicate plural words in their sentences. Also, when the context is obvious or people know what they're talking about, they can omit stuff like in this panel - they omitted three either for villages or the handsome men (三つ for villages, 三人 for handsome men).

We know that Yorozu was talking about destroying three villages for the wedding ceremony, so we should already know that when she started talking about the shrunken heads part, we readers should have already understood that she would take the heads of the most handsome man in each of the three villages for the poetry session.

Which is why the illustration of Yorozu's poem featured three human heads:

JJK Chapter 217 - Illustration Accompanying Yorozu's Verse

Speaking of poetry, both translations said 'write Haiku'. Haiku DID NOT exist in the Heian era. It didn't become a thing until hundreds of years later.

So in Yorozu's dialogue, we see the kanji 句 (pronounced as ku). which literally means stanza. So Yorozu literally says 'make stanzas' and I cleaned that up to writing poetry. Because she said, 'write poetry with everyone', this means that the second [the first being decapitating heads] fun part of the wedding reception would be a collaborative poetry session with the guests. There's only one kind of collaborative poetry that is popular in Heian era.

It's called Renga (連歌), the predecessor of Haikai, which was the predecessor of Haiku. Basically the grandparent of Haiku.

Originally, it began as a two stanza poem that involved two poets or writers, which is categorized as Tanrenga. The first writer writes the first stanza in a 5-7-5 form then the second one writes the last stanza in a 7-7 form. As Tanrenga became more and more popular, it became more complex and intricate that it gained popularity as a game, and events were held to create the best ones. Eventually, because there were more participants, other forms like Chourenga (Long Renga) and Hyakuin Renga (100 stanza Renga) were created, with the 100 stanza Renga eventually becoming the basis for what we know as Renga today. [basically this is the summary of the Wiki page]

In this collaborative poetry, the first to write poem has one job - write the first stanza (called Jouku 上句 in tanrenga and Hokku 発句 in Hyakuin Renga). The first stanza has to be the only verse in the entire poem that can be considered to be a stand-alone poem. It also must illustrate the ba, which is the location (e.g. garden), the season, and so on. The structure is basically the same as Haiku - a 5-7-5 verse with a cutting word (Kireji, see the Reddit post here for some examples) and a seasonal word/reference (Kigo, see this site for examples of Kigo used in Haiku). It is the hardest to write, so usually the most experienced and talented poet starts it off.

Which makes Sukuna's face even funnier:

Yorozu was basically proposing that the most entertaining part of the wedding reception would include doing a Renga session with the guests, where they would write about the three shrunken heads of the most handsome men from the three villages destroyed. Then she wrote this verse and showed it to him:

Even handsome men If dried out, becomes flaky Truly exquisite – Yorozu

It is in the 5-7-5 form and has a cutting word (し) at the very last line. It sets the topic. Also, I love how most of the vocabulary are modern Japanese words except いとおかし, which are Heian-era words with いと meaning 'very, truly' and おかし holding various meaning like 'beautiful, funny, interesting, awesome, marvelous, cute, lovely, amazing, and so on'. Though she should've written the sentence as いとをかし, the original way it was written back then.

BUT it doesn't indicate the location (e.g. garden) and IT DOESN'T HAVE A SEASONAL WORD.

The word that would've illustrated the season and would've allowed the participants to determine the words they should use [Yes, there are rules in poetry that all the nobles follow].

That's why Sukuna is alarmed that there's no seasonal word because what Yorozu wrote would have been the first stanza of the Renga poem, and it's a disaster!

Also knowing how people judged others' poems during this era, as you've seen how poems of men sent to the lady he was courting in the Heian marriage section, I don't think Sukuna was only horrified at the lack of the seasonal word.

This man must've been judging her poem. He'd be looking at her penmanship [she must've used a pen not ink], the vocabulary she used, and the substance of what she wrote........ and safe to say, he doesn't like what she wrote at all. It's funny to us, but at an objective standpoint, it's crap. Basically, brainrot in Heian era standards.

So you can't blame Sukuna's expression here.

But given what we know about Yorozu, I'm not surprised she's breaking all the rules even in writing poetry. What's surprising, though, was that Sukuna, the most hedonistic man in JJK, respects tradition and rules (in the arts and jujutsu, at the very least).

That's about it. I'm glad Sukuna killed Yorozu or else we'll see some pseudo-incest sh*t going on even though the ones inhabiting Megumi and Tsumiki aren't related at all.

Plus, we don't need to eat Monkey Brain Potage at a wedding reception..... can't believe Yorozu chose this as the main dish for a wedding reception:

Yorozu: Let's have them [Uraume] be responsible for cooking. Monkey Brain Potage is a must (no matter what)!!

It would've been hilarious if Kenjaku in Geto's body had eaten this, ngl.

See you in the next post or reblog!