"First-rate. Jaffe's research is utterly original; virtually none of the issues covered have been seriously investigated in any other Western-language study, and there are precious few Japanese secondary studies in the area. The book is well organized, well balanced, and a delight to read."--Robert Sharf, University of Michigan

"That the male Buddhist clergy in Japan is almost entirely married is an anomaly within Buddhism as a whole. Jaffe's subject is the problem of how this came about. What were the implications for the Buddhist understandings of marriage, sexuality, and reproduction? What accounts for the fact that almost all Buddhist male clergy marry, while virtually no nuns do? What does 'monasticism' mean in modern Japanese Buddhism? These are some of the questions animating Jaffe's study."--Helen Hardacre, Harvard University