thanks for the TL!
are women patrons typical for that time or is this manga just progressive? i'm guessing the latter but either way it is interesting to see.
ayano don't really seem to have power or control with her finances so i'm wondering how the matron thinks they can extort her of money
Hm good question. I was wondering the same when the other woman showed up, but forgot to research that. Will look into it!
I do know from other research that both (1) married men hiring prostitutes, and (2) men having sex with men were generally not taboo in Japan before Western influence, mostly getting locked down during the Allied occupation after WW2. That said, by this time things had already been quite patriarchal for some time, and that was reinforced by the Meiji Restoration’s borrowing from European politics & peerage systems. So I wouldn’t be surprised if these liberties applied much more to men than woman.
One key difference between Ayano and the woman at the beginning of this chapter is that Ayano’s parents are still the head of her family, whereas the other woman was (at some point) married and likely had more control over her family’s finances. Tsubaki’s matron could be laying the groundwork for when Ayano does marry and inherit the family’s household matters.