The domestic sphere. Getting married ; Obtaining a divorce ; The consequences of adultery ; A woman's place -- Material life. Regulating fashion and consumption ; Samurai dress and grooming standards ; Lunisolar calendar ; Japanese foodways and diet ; The communal bath ; The Japanese home -- The political sphere. A foreigner's view of the Battle of Osaka ; Forging political order ; The emperor and the Kyoto aristocracy ; Weapons control in Japanese society ; Self-governance in villages ; Regulating townspeople in two cities -- Foreign relations. Regulating foreign relations ; Tokugawa Japan and Choson Korea ; Leaving a window open to the Western world ; A Dutch audience with the shogun ; Sizing up the foreign threat -- Social and economic life. The social estates ; Trying to get by on a fixed income ; The samurai and death ; Private vengeance among samurai ; Rules of merchant houses ; Dealing with deviant behavior ; Loans among the peasantry ; Unrest in the countryside ; Outcastes in Tokugawa society -- Recreational life. Advice to travelers in the Edo period ; Documentation for travel ; Children and their amusements ; The tea ceremony ; Archery and the martial arts ; Courtesans and the sex trade ; A hero for the masses -- Religion and morality. Preaching to the people ; Anti-Christian propaganda ; Controlling the populace ; Religious views of the Japanese ; The teachings of Zen Buddhism.