section_path: Early life
section_name: Early life
paragraph_text: Early life
  
  Murasaki Shikibu was born c. 973 in Heian-kyō, Japan, into the northern Fujiwara clan descending from Fujiwara no Yoshifusa, the first 9th century Fujiwara regent. The Fujiwara clan dominated court politics until the end of the 11th century through strategically marrying their daughters into the imperial family and the use of regencies. In the late 10th century and early 11th century, Fujiwara no Michinaga, the so-called Mido Kampaku, arranged his four daughters into marriages with emperors, giving him unprecedented power. Murasaki's great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had been in the top tier of the aristocracy, but her branch of the family gradually lost power and by the time of Murasaki's birth was at the middle to lower ranks of the Heian aristocracy—the level of provincial governors. The lower ranks of the nobility were typically posted away from court to undesirable positions in the provinces, exiled from the centralized power and court in Kyoto.
  
  Despite the loss of status, the family had a reputation among the literati through Murasaki's paternal great-grandfather and grandfather, both of whom were well-known poets. Her great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had 56 poems included in 13 of the Twenty-one Imperial Anthologies, the Collections of Thirty-six Poets and the Yamato Monogatari (Tales of Yamato). Her great-grandfather and grandfather were both friendly with Ki no Tsurayuki, who became notable for popularizing Japanese-language verse. Her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, attended the State Academy (Daigaku-ryō) and became a well-respected scholar of Chinese classics and poetry; his own verse was anthologized. He entered public service around 968 as a minor official and was given a governorship in 996, staying in service until about 1018. Murasaki's mother was descended from the same branch of northern Fujiwara as Tametoki. The couple had three children, a son and two daughters.
  
  In the Heian era the use of names, insofar as they were recorded, did not follow a modern pattern. A court lady, as well as being known by the title of her own position, if any, took a name referring to the rank or title of a male relative. Thus "Shikibu" is not a modern surname, but refers to Shikibu-shō, the Ministry of Ceremonials where Murasaki's father was a functionary. "Murasaki", an additional name possibly derived from the color violet associated with wisteria, the meaning of the word fuji (an element of her clan name), may have been bestowed on her at court in reference to the name she herself had given to the main female character in "Genji". Michinaga mentions the names of several ladies-in-waiting in a 1007 diary entry; one, Fujiwara no Takako (Kyōshi), may be Murasaki's personal name.
  
  In Heian-era Japan, husbands and wives kept separate households; children were raised with their mothers, although the patrilineal system was still followed. Murasaki was unconventional because she lived in her father's household, most likely on Teramachi Street in Kyoto, with her younger brother Nobunori. Their mother died, perhaps in childbirth, when they were quite young. Murasaki had at least three half-siblings raised with their mothers; she was very close to one sister who died in her twenties.
  
  Murasaki was born at a period when Japan was becoming more isolated, after missions to China had ended and a stronger national culture was emerging. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Japanese gradually became a written language through the development of kana, a syllabary based on abbreviations of Chinese characters. In Murasaki's lifetime, men continued to write formally in Chinese, but kana became the written language of intimacy and of noblewomen, setting the foundation for unique forms of Japanese literature.
  
  Chinese was taught to Murasaki's brother as preparation for a career in government, and during her childhood, living in her father's household, she learned and became proficient in classical Chinese. In her diary she wrote, "When my brother... was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening to him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to understand and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: 'Just my luck,' he would say, 'What a pity she was not born a man! ' " With her brother she studied Chinese literature, and she probably also received instruction in more traditional subjects such as music, calligraphy and Japanese poetry. Murasaki's education was unorthodox. Louis Perez explains in The History of Japan that "Women... were thought to be incapable of real intelligence and therefore were not educated in Chinese." Murasaki was aware that others saw her as "pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful". Asian literature scholar Thomas Inge believes she had "a forceful personality that seldom won her friends."