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The term "Geisha" translates into ´Artist´ or ´Person of Talent´. Despite popular Western misconceptions, the geisha of feudal Japan, and even of today, is quite different from a prostitute. To understand why this role in Japanese society was necessary, it is important to look back at the traditional roles of women.

Courtly Japan, with a few exceptions, was a place of fragile beauty and delicacy. Women were kept in separate quarters, seeing male visitors from behind a protective screen, perhaps trailing a carefully layered kimono sleeve into his view to tantalize him. They spent their time composing poetry, mixing incense, and making music. While unmarried they were allowed love affairs, but once wed they were required to be completely faithful.

The Japanese male, on the other hand, was allowed affairs, and tradition had him put his family, his parents, and himself before his wife. The wife had secured him a social position, and now provided heirs, but she was not available to keep light company with him and his business companions.

This is where the Geisha came in. She was a professional ´hostess´, providing flirtatious chatter, song and dance, playing the samisen. Geisha were always unmarried - those who did marry retired, while others retired to teach music or dance. This specialized class of entertainer did those things Western socialites were taught to do - make the men comfortable, pour their drinks, keep spirits light and conversation flowing.

The geisha can be traced to certain well-paid entertainers in brothels, but quickly grew to become a separate, and extremely elite, profession in its own right. Schools were formed that families would indenture their young girls to - in exchange for room, board, food and training, the girl would provide her services to her new ´family´. Since it was typical for poor farmers to sell their daughters into prostitution and give their sons away to monastaries, the life of a geisha, with all its romance and elegance, was sought after by many.

The girl would start as a ´maiko´, or dance child, and would have a long training period in which she would have to learn a myriad of unique skills. She would be instructed in the proper manner to whiten her face, the art of dressing elegantly, how to serve drinks, how to play the samisen, and any number of other ´womanly´ skills. In addition, many learned something of the business world to be able to converse with their clients.

The geisha´s position in society flourished when peace and prosperity came to Japan. As the Momoyama period began in the 1600s, the new peace brought with it a pursuit of the gentler pleasures. As the peace lasted, the Genroku era in the late 1600s saw art dedicated to the form of woman, a far cry from those days where a woman´s form was something to be idealized, but not actually looked at. A series of artists carried this movement - Suzuki Horunobu painting idealized females, which moved into the statuesque geisha of Torii Kiyonaga and the sensual women of Kitagawa Utamaro. Woodblock prints abounded of theYoshiwara, or gay quarters of Edo. The merchant class flourished, and the new wealth ensured that by the 1800s there were over 80,000 geisha in employ.

Geisha faded, as did many traditions of Japan, as modernization and Westernization took over the nation. There are now fewer than 1000 geisha left.