The Tale of Genji: chapters 36-39, 2 princesses and male entitlement

1/ So there is a suicide in The Tale of Genji—a man starves himself to death. 
There are echoes throughout the story and I cannot help drawing some parallels—Kashiwagi (To no Chujo’s eldest son) violates the Third Princess (and thus betrays Genji) so he chooses death out of guilt, shame, and fear of scandal, but years ago Genji had an affair with Fujitsubo and then Oborozukiyo, betraying his own father and his half-brother Suzaku respectively, but when stripped of rank and title and banished, he thought he’s blameless? 
The difference is that Genji’s relationships are consensual but I’m not under the impression that it’s a strong factor. On the one hand, Kashiwagi is more emotion-driven, cowardly, and apparently not willing to live with the consequences of his actions. On the other hand, Genji seems to think his affair with Oborozukiyo is foolish but not so serious, and doesn’t feel as guilty about the affair with Fujitsubo as she does. 

2/ Suzaku has 4 daughters. 
The Third Princess (Onna San no Miya) he marries off to Genji despite his protests. She gets neglected, especially during the several months of Murasaki’s illness, lacks guidance, and finds herself yielding to an affair with Kashiwagi that she finds hateful. 
With Suzaku’s approval, the Second Princess (Ochiba no Miya) marries Kashiwagi, who doesn’t love her. She too gets neglected as he chases her sister and, when he falls ill, stays with his parents and dies months later without managing to see her. So she becomes a widow. 
Kashiwagi manages to ruin 2 women’s lives. But through these 2 examples, Murasaki Shikibu lets us see why the characters say that generally it’s not advisable for princesses (Emperor’s daughters) to get married. 

3/ According to Knulp, one of the themes of The Tale of Genji is the conflict between religious life and material life. 
The Akashi Novice chooses religious life and stays behind, whilst his wife the Nun and his daughter move to Aoi and then to the Rokujo estate. He only contacts his family after Akashi’s daughter gives birth successfully—to tell Akashi about his dream and prayers and send them some scriptures (ch.34).
In contrast, Suzaku becomes a monk and moves to the mountains but cannot leave everything behind—he’s still concerned about his daughters, especially the Third Princess. He even returns in person when being told about the pregnancy and guessing that something’s wrong—he cannot renounce life completely, his heart is not fully set on religious life. 
Genji himself talks a lot about renouncing life, but I don’t think he can do it either. 

4/ As the Third Princess chooses to become a nun (Her Cloistered Highness), she not only renounces the world and seeks refuge in religion, but in a way she also abandons her child. 
Genji wonders how she feels about turning her back on the boy (known as Kaoru). 

5/ The passages about the parents’ grief are so raw and touching. There are many deaths throughout The Tale of Genji and Murasaki Shikibu has written several times about grief, but parents’ grief is quite something else. 

6/ Have I mentioned the writing is beautiful? See this passage, when Yugiri visits his friend’s widow (now called the Princess at Ichijo): 

“The skies of the fourth month sometimes lifted the heart, and the color of the budding trees was lovely everywhere, but for that house, plunged in mourning, all things fed a life of quiet woe, and he therefore set off there as he did so often. The grounds were filling with new green, and here and there in shadowed places, where the sand was thin, wormwood had made itself at home. The near garden, once so carefully tended, now grew as it pleased. A spreading clump of pampas grass grew bravely there, and he made his way through it moist with dew, mindful of the insect cries that autumn would bring. The outside of the house was hung with Iyo blinds, through which he caught cooling glimpses of the new season’s gray standing curtains and of pretty page girls’ hair and dark gray skirts—all of which was very pleasant were it not that the color was so sad. 
This time he sat on the veranda, where he was provided with a cushion. The women felt that it was rude to leave him there, and they tried to persuade the Haven to receive him as usual, but she had been feeling unwell lately and was half reclining. While they did what they could to divert him, he looked out sorrowfully on the trees that grew in the grounds, indifferent to human cares.” (Ch.36) 

7/ Earlier Genji keeps To no Chujo’s daughter Tamakazura for a while before telling him. Now he doesn’t let him know about his grandson Kaoru. 
Yugiri’s eagerness to see his father’s face when he asks about Kashiwagi is funny. It’s curious how he doesn’t seem to understand why Genji wants to keep it a secret. 
Is this karma? Is this Genji having to pay for what he has done? 

8/ In these chapters the story moves away from Genji, especially in chapter 39, “Yugiri”, translated as “Evening Mist” (which becomes Genji’s son’s nickname), which focuses on Yugiri.
From regular visits due to respect to his close friend/ her dead husband, Yugiri gradually decides that he wants Ochiba (the Princess at Ichijo), and starts to “attack”. Again there are echoes of Genji’s behaviour in his son’s courtship of Ochiba, but if we exclude the case of Murasaki (which is unusual and complicated) and only look at the adults, in many ways I think Yugiri’s behaviour is more distasteful and abhorrent. 
First of all, he takes advantage of her circumstances and alludes to them, trying to get her into sex by saying that more gossip wouldn’t make any difference to her name—people are already laughing at her because she’s a widow. He also uses threats, which Genji never does. 
Secondly, Yugiri chooses to talk about his feelings when her mother, the Haven, is ill and receiving healing rites. It is not the right time, and it’s understandable that Ochiba thinks he disturbs her mother’s health and causes her death. Not only so, they are Buddhists and there is another significance: 

“... she remembered how her already weakened mother had died convinced that that unspeakably wicked moment had ruined her daughter, and she knew with awful certainty that the thought would harm her mother even in the life to come.” (Ch.39) 

In Buddhist beliefs the Haven would carry the anger and bitterness onto the next life. 
Worse, sometime during the mourning for the Haven, Yugiri thinks: 

“Why was he still so intent on upholding the lost cause of her honor? He might as well do as others did and have his way with her at last. He would no longer argue the matter with his wife. He would appeal to the authority of the reproachful letter that single night had earned him, even if Her Highness hated him for it. No, she would not succeed in presenting herself as unblemished.” (ibid.) 

(The letter is from the Haven, asking why he only comes for a single night instead of coming for 3 consecutive nights to confirm their marriage, as is custom. Her Highness refers to Ochiba). 
Is that not abhorrent?
Murasaki Shikibu, like Jane Austen and different from George Eliot, presents the character’s thoughts without comment—without moralising. Then she writes about Ochiba’s feelings, and also his wife Kumoi no Kari’s thoughts as she learns about the pursuit. Yugiri, after trying to persuade and threaten Ochiba, puts pressure to her gentlewomen. 
These chapters show very clearly the idea of male entitlement. 
Because of the patriarchal system, Ochiba is helpless and has to be dependent on men. There is pressure from all sides to force to accept Yugiri—Yugiri ignores her feelings and installs himself at Ichijo, her father Suzaku doesn’t allow her to become a nun (following him and her sister Onna San no Miya), her relative the Governor says he cannot continue serving her and she has to return to Ichijo, her gentlewomen think she’s childish for rejecting him when she doesn’t have a protector, and Yugiri presents to the world that they are together even though she hasn’t consented. In this world the men have all the freedom and the women cannot speak out to defend themselves. They lose either way. 

9/ If we place the 2 princesses next to each other, we can see some irony: the Third Princess (Onna San no Miya) has a child with someone else but escapes scandal because she quickly becomes a nun, whereas the Second Princess (Ochiba no Miya) has to live with rumour and shame even though she hasn’t done anything. 

10/ So far I don’t buy the idea of multiple authorship. 
I cannot say anything about the last 12 chapters because I’m not there yet, but The Tale of Genji so far looks like it has to be written by the same author because the story deals with the characters’ inner minds, not just plot and action; there are many characters who appear for the entire story so far and they are consistent, even when they mature and change by experience, there is a consistency to them—the core remains the same; there is no significant difference in style; the overarching themes of Buddhism and mono no aware are always present.  
There is no bad chapter in The Tale of Genji. If I say there’s a slight unevenness, I only mean that some chapters are better than others—they’re great, intense, and the others are good, very good. At the same time I cannot help noticing that for a large part of the book, the author is invisible—the narrator only appears once in a while to remind us that she’s a gentlewoman telling a story to her superiors, or to say it would be a bore to report everything the characters do or say (at an event, for example). However a few times in the Tamakazura chapters, there’s a bit of intrusion—I didn’t write it down as I thought the narrator was going to be more visible over time. But then after the Tamakazura story, probably from about chapter 33, the author/ narrator again disappears. 
Do I think that is evidence of multiple authors? Not really. The narrator only comments on things or makes obvious her opinion on a few occasions, which I noticed because that’s the sort of thing I tend to notice. Apart from that minor point, there is nothing that significantly stands out, in terms of scenic descriptions, character development, dialogue, style, tone, etc.