Abstract: Reconstructing the lives of Shibukawa Sachiko and Ki no Yoshiko, the two official wives of Ashikaga Yoshiakira, is difficult, for their histories can only be glimpsed partially through diaries kept by the chroniclers of their time that address their natal families, husband, and male children and through other sources such as death records, land documents, and archaeological reports. By painstakingly searching out pieces of evidence about how these women lived, where they gave birth and how they dealt with their children's deaths, the types of activities in which they engaged, their relationships with other women, and how they were remembered after death, we can begin to build an outline of their lives. This article brings together small but significant pieces of information that paint a vivid portrait of two women who have been marginalized in Japanese history.
Karen M. Gerhart (2025) studied this question.