Prior to the Meiji restoration, sex work was a tactic available to poor rural women to keep destitution at bay. During the twilight years of Tokugawa rule, women recruited to work in the licensed ‘pleasure quarters’ more often than not came from the poorer strata of the peasant population. A common practice for heads of peasant households fallen on hard times due to natural calamity, chance accident or sickness was to sell their daughters into prostitution. In return for a sum of money up front, the household head transferred his authority and patriarchal right to the creditor. The practice of selling daughters into prostitution also had political utility. In terms of governance, the licensed ‘pleasure quarter’ doubled as an orderly outlet for libidinal desire and as an institution for poor relief in Japanese cities and castle towns. The ‘pleasure quarter’ was a safety net to ease destitution among the rural poor and prevent urban vagrancy.

In pre-Meiji Japan, it was socially acceptable for destitute parents to send a daughter to a public house of prostitution. The communities around these families valued such an act of filial piety on the daughter's part as a repayment to her parents. In contrast, destitute women who worked in the sex trade outside the licensed pleasure quarters were heavily stigmatized. Japanese authorities and moralists abhorred clandestine prostitution, which they regarded as a violation of the laws of society and nature. Officials categorized clandestine prostitutes as ‘beasts with human faces’ (jyūkō naru mono), a term signifying incorrigibility. Analogous to animals, these women lacked a sense of shame. Without the wherewithal to recognize right from wrong, such women were considered incapable of understanding the errors of their ways. In and of itself, prostitution was not morally wrong.

In the years immediately following the Meiji restoration, the newly formed government's position towards prostitution was ambiguous. In November 1872, the Council of State (Dajōkan) issued the ‘Ordinance for the Emancipation of Prostitutes’ (shōgi kaihōrei), which made all contracts tying women to licensed brothels null and void. In the early months of 1873, however, the Meiji government reinstated licensed prostitution under the ‘room rental’ (kashizashiki) system. Devised by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the ‘room rental’ system continued the Tokugawa practice of restricting licensed prostitution to designated areas of the city.