In Edo, You Could Rent Your Bedding | Room Hunting, Then and Now: Edo ⑧

This is the English edition of our Japanese series 「お部屋探し今むかし」 (Room Hunting, Then and Now). 日本語版はこちら ／ All English articles

In Edo ④ I wrote that a row-house room had only about four tatami mats of floor. Bedding, kimono, pots, dishes. Own all of it, and there is nowhere left to sleep. So what did Edo people do?

One answer: rent it

Edo had a trade called sonryōya. A dictionary defines it as “a shop that lends out clothing, bedding, utensils and the like for a fee” (Digital Daijisen).

An encyclopedia adds that they lent not only clothing but furnishings, bedding and accessories. In today’s terms, a rental shop.

Sonryō means the rental fee. Literally it is a “loss charge”: things wear out when they are used, and you pay for that loss. An oddly honest name.

The word appears in a book of comic stories from 1773. The phrase kushaku-niken from Edo ④ appears in another comic book from the same year. Tiny rooms and rental shops belonged to the same world.

They say you could even rent underwear

How far did rental go? An article on the Japanese culture site Warakuweb says one of the main items at a sonryōya was the fundoshi, the traditional loincloth. The rental fee is given as 60 mon, against 250 mon to buy a new one.

Renting cost about a quarter of the purchase price, with no laundry to do. I should note that these figures come from a web article and I have not been able to check the original record. Please treat them as a rough guide.

Owning less is not new

Own little, and rent only when you need something. Today we call it subscription or sharing. From Edo’s point of view, the trend arrived rather late.

The same thinking works when you look for a home. Furnished apartments. Appliance rental for just the period you need. If you are moving from far away, or staying for a fixed term, compare options other than buying everything. It changes both your upfront costs and how much you have to move.

A note on sources: I confirmed the sonryōya in dictionaries and an encyclopedia, and the loincloth prices in a web article. I still do not know how much it cost to rent bedding. More homework.

Next time: fire. How many great fires do you think Edo had?

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Please note: Lease contracts and the legally required explanation of important matters (jūyō jikō setsumei) are provided in Japanese.