Zashikiwarashi - Tumblr Posts

Furthermore, in Edo period, abortion was VERY VERY VERY DANGEROUS for the woman. Risks of injuries and even death were extremely high with the kind of procedures they used at the time. Hence, it wasn’t uncommon for people to carry the fetus full term, give birth, then kill the baby if they couldn’t afford to keep it. Since it was believed that when babies were born, they were still mostly a being of the spirit’s world, the more they live with humans, the more human they become. This practice is called mabiki (間引き).

However, for prostitutes, who often were sold into brothels and had a debts over their heads, being pregnant for 9 months hindered their ability to work and make money for the brothel. Some privileged prostitutes were allowed to carry and give birth - actually a safer alternative to abortion practices at the time. But most didn’t have the choice to do so, and was subjected to inhumane, torturous procedures. Like the ones depicted in Mononoke.

It’s important to note that although the zashiki warashi appear in forms of toddlers, and are said to be the spirits of “unborn children,” the physical sufferings that are graphically depicted and highlighted are those of the women who were forced into that cruel torture chamber. The toddlers are symbols and their cries stand in place for the screams of the women whose autonomy over their own bodies was violently taken from them (along with, most likely, their lives).

I see the Zashiki Warashi arc as a tragedy of the lack of choice for so many women of that era. Their bodies are mere commodities they do not own. Their fate decided by the owner of the brothel, whose only concern is profit. Their lives failed by medical procedures that cared not for their well-being. All problems that still have traces in our contemporary society, just under a different form. Women did and still have limited autonomy over their own bodies.

The Zashikiwarashi arc is about choice, a woman's choice to control her own body, to give birth to her child at her own discretion and vilifying and punishing the people who would take that choice from her, it's literally as feminist as it gets