ABSTRACT
Many recent studies have highlighted the dramatic changes undertaken by Buddhist institutions in Japan's modern period, usually thought of as encompassing the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa eras, roughly 1868–1945. This chapter traces the contours of the arguments made for women's rights within the Otani-ha. It describes the efforts by institutional elites to inscribe gender equality and individual freedom of religion into the institution's bylaws with one temple daughter's attempt to put these ideals into practice in her own life. Despite liberal concerns about the rights of temple family members, and the modern preference for a clerical vocation to arise from individual awareness rather than inherited obligation, the social reality of family-run temples has proven to be a non-negotiable element of the Shin clerical tradition. This has resulted in a very limited local resonance of well-intentioned attempts by institutional leaders and temple wife network leaders to bring their Buddhist tradition into line with the predominant ethical discourse of modernity.
