Origins In the early stages of
Japanese history, (serving girls) were mostly wandering girls whose families had been displaced by war. Some of these girls offered sexual services for money while others made a living by entertaining at high-class social gatherings. After the imperial court moved the capital to
Heian-kyō (Kyoto) in
794, aspects of now-traditional Japanese art forms and
aesthetic ideals began to develop, which would later contribute to the conditions under which the geisha profession emerged. Skilled female performers, such as dancers, thrived under the Imperial court, creating the traditions of female dance and performance that would later lead to both the development of geisha and
kabuki actors. During the Heian period, ideals surrounding relationships with women, sexual or otherwise, did not emphasise fidelity, with marriage within the Heian court considered a relatively casual arrangement. Men were not expected to be faithful to their wives, while women were expected to remain faithful to their husbands. The ideal wife instead was seen as a modest mother who managed the affairs of the house, following
Confucian customs wherein love had secondary importance to the other roles a wife fulfilled within the marriage. As such, courtesans—who provided not only sexual enjoyment, but also romantic attachment and artistic entertainment—were seen both as an outlet for men and as common companions.Though geisha would not appear until the 1800s, the role and status of courtesans as artistic and romantic entertainers were a tradition that geisha came to inherit, with the basic artforms of entertaining guests through song, dance and conversation being employed and adapted to contemporary tastes by geisha. Walled-in pleasure quarters known as were built in the 16th century, with the
shogunate designating
prostitution illegal to practice outside of these "pleasure quarters" in 1617. Further still, some courtesans, whose contracts within the pleasure quarters had ended, chose to stay on to provide musical entertainment to guests, making use of the skills they had formerly developed as part of their job. In the 1680s, had become popular entertainers and were often paid to perform in the private homes of upper-class samurai. These dancing girls, who were too young to be called geisha but too old (over twenty) to be called odoriko, began to be called geiko. By the early 18th-century, lots of these had also begun offering sexual services as well as chaste performances. Performers who were no longer teenagers (and could no longer style themselves ). At that time, the word "geiko" became synonymous with illegal prostitute. The first woman known to have called herself "geisha" was a prostitute from
Fukagawa, roughly around 1750, who had become a skilled singer and player. The geisha, who took the name of Kikuya, became an immediate success, bringing greater popularity to the idea of female geisha.Following Kikuya's success as a geisha, many girls began to make names for themselves as talented musicians, dancers or poets, instead of becoming prostitutes. In the next two decades, female geisha became well known for their talents as entertainers in their own right; these performers often worked in the same establishments as male geisha.
Geisha in the 19th-century to present day By 1800, the profession of geisha was understood to be almost entirely female, and was established as a distinct role in its own right; however, geisha were, throughout various points within the
Edo period, unable to work outside of the pleasure quarters, being affected by reforms aimed at either limiting or shutting down the pleasure quarters. These reforms were often inconsistent, and were repealed at various times. Once established as an independent profession, a number of edicts were then introduced in order to protect the business of courtesans and separate the two professions. Geisha were firstly forbidden from selling sex, though many continued to do so; if a courtesan accused a geisha of stealing her customers and business of sex and entertainment, an official investigation was opened, with the potential for a geisha to lose her right to practice the profession. Geisha were also forbidden from wearing particularly flashy hairpins or kimono, both of which were hallmarks of higher-ranking courtesans, who were considered to be a part of the upper classes. This popularity was then increased by the introduction of various laws intended to clamp down on and regulate the lower classes – in particular, the emerging merchant classes who had established themselves as the premiere patrons of geisha. Both had, over time, come to hold much of the purchasing power within Japan, with their status as lower class allowing them a degree of freedom in their tastes of dress and entertainment, in contrast to upper-class families who had little choice but to appear in a manner deemed respectable to their status. As the tastes of the merchant classes for kabuki and geisha became widely popular, laws introduced to effectively neuter the appearances and tastes of geisha and their customers were passed. This, however, had the adverse effect of leading to the rise in popularity of more refined and subversive
aesthetical senses within those classes, further alienating courtesans and their patrons from popularity and contemporary taste; the introduction of laws on dress only furthered the popularity of geisha as refined and fashionable companions for men. As a result, over time, courtesans of both higher and lower ranks began to fall out of fashion, seen as gaudy and old-fashioned. By the 1830s, geisha were considered to be the premiere fashion and style icons in Japanese society, and were emulated by women of the time. Many fashion trends started by geisha soon became widely popular, with some continuing to this day; the wearing of by women, for example, was first started by geisha from the Tokyo of Fukagawa in the early 1800s. There were considered to be many classifications and ranks of geisha, though some were colloquial or closer to a tongue-in-cheek nicknames than an official ranking. Some geisha would sleep with their customers, whereas others would not, leading to distinctions such as geisha – a geisha who slept with customers as well as entertaining them through performing arts – ("prostitute") and ("whore") geisha, whose only entertainment for male customers was sex, and geisha, who did not, officially and in reality, sleep with customers at all. By the end of the 19th-century, courtesans no longer held the celebrity status they once did. This trend would continue until the
criminalisation of prostitution in Japan in 1956.
Pre-war and wartime geisha World War II brought lasting change to the geisha profession; before the war, geisha numbers, despite seeing competition from (café girls, the precursor to the
bar hostess profession in Japan), had been as high as 80,000, From the 1930s onwards, the rise of the bar hostess began to overshadow geisha as the premiere profession of entertainment at parties and outings for men. In 1959, the
Standard-Examiner reported the plight of geisha in an article written for the magazine by Japanese businessman
Tsûsai Sugawara. Sugawara stated that girls now "prefer[red] to become dancers, models, and cabaret and bar hostesses rather than start [the] training in music and dancing at the age of seven or eight" necessary to become geisha at the time. Compulsory education laws passed in the 1960s effectively shortened the period of training for geisha apprentices, as girls could no longer be taken on at a young age to be trained throughout their teenage years. This led to a decline in women entering the profession, as most required a recruit to be at least somewhat competent and trained in the arts she would later go on to use as a geisha; by about 1975, mothers in Kyoto began accepting both recruits from different areas of Japan in larger numbers, and recruits with little to no previous experience in the traditional arts. Before this point, the number of in had dropped from 80 to just 30 between 1965 and 1975.
Present-day geisha , one of the most famous tea houses where geisha entertain in Gion Kobu Modern geisha mostly still live in they are affiliated with, particularly during their apprenticeship, and are legally required to be registered to one, though they may not live there every day. Many experienced geisha are successful enough to choose to live independently, though living independently is more common in some geisha districts – such as those in Tokyo – than others. Geisha are often hired to attend parties and gatherings, traditionally at tea houses or traditional Japanese restaurants (). The charge for a geisha's time, previously determined by
the time it took to burn one incense stick (known as ) or , was modernised during the 19th-century to a flat fee charged per hour. Over time the number of geisha has declined, despite the efforts of those within the profession. Factors include the nature of the economy, declining interest in the traditional arts, the exclusive and closed-off nature of the , and the expense of being entertained by geisha. The number of and geisha in Kyoto fell from 76 and 548 in 1965 respectively to just 71 and 202 in 2006 as a result. However, following the advent of wider accessibility to the internet from the mid-2000s onwards, a greater number of recruits have decided to join the profession with no existing ties to the through watching online documentaries and reading websites set up by to promote their business; In recent years, a growing number of geisha have complained to the authorities about being pursued and harassed by groups of tourists keen to take their photograph when out walking. As a result, tourists in Kyoto have been warned not to harass geisha on the streets, with local residents of the city and businesses in the areas surrounding the of Kyoto launching patrols throughout Gion in order to prevent tourists from doing so. In 2020, to address the income reduction among the Geisha community caused by the
social distancing measures of
COVID-19, a project called "Meet Geisha" was launched. Originally conceived as a way to bring groups of tourists to experience Geisha performances in a more relaxed and less intimidating setting, the initiative was introduced by an IT firm with the aim of capitalizing on an anticipated influx of tourists, including those visiting for the
Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The online presence of Geisha culture extended beyond the project's Zoom calls and gained global popularity, bolstered by internationally acclaimed movies and TV shows such as
Memoirs of a Geisha and
Shōgun, as well as platforms like Roblox, among others. ==Appearance==