Women Warriors of Japan:
The stories of women warriors defending their homes and their families became means to define a woman’s role in society. They trained with the naginata less to prepare for combat than to instill them with the idealized virtues necessary to be a samurai wife. A women’s work was unremitting service to the males of the household and tireless effort to teach proper behavior to her children, who were legally considered to be her husband’s alone. However, unlike the upper-class women of Victorian England, who were expected to be subservient and frail, the bushi women were expected to be subservient and strong. Their duty was to endure.
