The Importance of Marriage Politics in the Shogunate

Inaka Genji in Keise Suiko defines Ianari's image as the wrong man for the job. The idea that his failures led to the failure of the system itself is deeply embedded in discourse about the end of feudalism. But I don't think it's entirely fair. It's easy to make one person's moral failings a stand in for the failings of the system as a whole. Things were far more complicated than that might suggest.