In 1155, Hōjō Tokimasa married Hōjō no Maki, who became his official wife. Her maiden name is not known. Even the marriage date is not clear, and is based on the birth of their first child, a daughter, Hōjō Masako in 1156. Hōjō Tokimasa, as the head of the Hōjō clan, chose to stay out of the civil strife engulfing western Japan based on court succession disputes between the Cloistered Emperor Toba, his son Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and Cloistered Emperor Suzaku, as well as a rivalry between the Minamoto clan under Minamoto no Yoshitomo and the Taira clan under Taira no Kiyomori.