How important was honour in Tokugawa Japan? Could it have possibly weakened rule e.g Ako incident and seppuku after the death on ones lord?

by Lord_Yatochan

How important was honour in Tokugawa Japan? Could it have possibly weakened rule e.g Ako incident and seppuku after the death on ones lord?

mpitelka

There isn't a simple answer to this question. Tokugawa Japan was not a monolithic society. There were diverse people living in Japan in this long period, separated by wealth, location, social status, gender, occupation and so on. Honor was certainly an ideal of the small but powerful samurai status group. But it was not necessarily the guiding imperative of other parts of the population. It was often parodied in plays, questioned in fiction, mocked in poetry, and celebrated in moralistic writings.