Among them, Ishikawa no Iratsume left poems which suggested she had affairs with multiple men, and some in the old days like Tachibana no Moribe viewed her as a prostitute by writing as such, but today, it is widely accepted that she was a woman from the Ishikawa clan, an ancient local ruling family.
このうち石川郎女については複数の男性との交際を思わせる歌が残されていることから、橘守部のように「遊行女婦也」（『万葉集檜褄手』）として、遊女とみる理解も古くはあったが、現在では古代豪族の石川氏出身の女性とみる見方が有力である。