Summary by Jena Knudsen. Edited by Mark Unno, 3/1/2002

Kumiko Uchino, "The Status Elevation Process of Soto Sect Nuns in Modern Japan"

As we all know, Buddhist nuns have historically been subordinated to monks in numerous ways. Given far less freedom and autonomy than monks, nuns were at the bottom of a hierarchy, dependent on the monastic order to supervise and legitimize important religious practices and rituals. Even though Dogen, who founded the Soto sect in the 13th century, argued that women were spiritually equal to men, it was not until the late 1800s that laws were first implemented to raise the status of nuns.

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 initiated a period of modernization. While it may not have done much to change nuns' actual status, it did change some religious policies. In the Meiji era the government declined to regulate religious law, saying that it was up to the Soto sect to decide how monks and nuns were to live. This technically gave more freedom to both but in reality, while many monks married, nuns were still expected to conform to tradition.

In the Meiji era, elementary education became mandatory for all children. In 1902 an act was passed that led to the opening of three Soto schools for nuns, offering instruction in Soto dogma, general education and skills like sewing.

In the Taisho era (1912-25) Japanese society was influenced by democracy and liberalism. In 1924 the first Soto sect Nuns' Conference was held, wherein nuns began listing proposals to be submitted to the Soto administration. In the next thirteen years there were two more conferences, and though the nun's demands became more specific, the organization still did not really have the political clout to bring about any drastic change in nuns' status. While there were some male sympathizers (like Priest Den, 183), most Soto monks and priests felt that women should stick to their 'natural' roles, as wives, mothers and teachers of suitably feminine crafts.

Small gains were earned in the next couple of decades, including the right for nuns to attend a Soto university as auditors in 1924, but more significant change did not come about until after the war. In the early 1940s a nun's organization (Nuns Organization for Protecting the Nation) was formed, with a focus on the war, not nuns' status. However, when the war ended, the framework of the organization was retained and the focus did shift to status elevation, largely thanks to the efforts of the nun KOJIMA Kendo.

Between 1946 and 1951, many laws were passed benefiting nuns, including one that gave nuns the right to conduct their own initiation ceremonies and to determine for themselves who was a formal Zen master (188).

By 1935, a little over sixty years after marriage was legalized for the monastic community, about eighty percent of priests were married. Their wives were granted more rights in the early 1940s and could by marriage, be considered nuns. As they became more involved in the community and gained more rights as their husbands' successors in the case of death, they came into conflict with the more traditional nuns, bringing a whole new element of change into the dynamics of Soto nuns' status.