江戸幕府3代将軍・徳川家光の時代、「赤面(あかづら)疱瘡(ほうそう)」と呼ばれる奇妙な病が日本中に広がっていった。この病は“若い男子にのみ”感染し、感染すれば“数日で死に至る”恐ろしい病であった。対処法も治療法も発見されず、結果として男子の人口は女子の1/4にまで激減し、日本の社会構造は激変した。男子は希少な種馬として育てられ、女子はかつての男子の代わりとして労働力の担い手となり、あらゆる家業が女から女へと受け継がれるようになる。江戸城でも3代将軍家光以降、将軍職は女子へと引き継がれ、大奥は将軍の威光の証であるがごとく希少な男子を囲い、俗に美男3千人などと称される男の世界が築かれていくのであった。
Aliases
- ドラマ10 大奥
- 大奥
- 大奥 (NHK) (2023)
During the reign of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third shogun of the Edo shogunate, a strange disease called "akasura pox" spread throughout Japan. The disease was a dreadful illness that "infected only young boys" and, if contracted, could lead to death "in a few days. No cure or treatment was ever discovered, and as a result, the male population plummeted to one-fourth that of the female population, drastically changing the social structure of Japan. Boys were bred to be scarce stallions, girls replaced boys as the workforce, and all family businesses were passed down from woman to woman. In Edo Castle, too, the shogun's position was handed over to a woman after the third shogun, Iemitsu, and the inner chambers of the shogun's palace surrounded rare boys as if they were proof of the shogun's prestige, creating a world of men commonly referred to as the "three thousand beautiful men.