shigeno

Updated: May 7, 2025

From the throne the custom spread to Regents and high officers of state, and so universal had its observance amongst officials of the high ranks become in the twelfth century that, as Professor Shigeno states, it was almost the rule for such persons to retire from the world at the age of forty or fifty, and nominally enter the priesthood, both the act and the person performing it being termed 'niu do. In the course of time, the custom of abdication ceased to be confined to officials, and extended to feudal nobility and the military class generally, whence it spread through the nation, and at this stage of its transition its connection with the phase it finally assumed becomes clear.

Sidney Lewis Gulick - Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic