Wiktionary
n. (context historical English) The coming-of-age ceremony of an apprentice geisha, often associated with loss of virginity.
Wikipedia
was a ceremony undergone by a Japanese maiko (apprentice geisha) to signify her coming of age. When the older geisha (in charge of the maiko's training) considered the young maiko ready to come of age, the topknot of her hair was symbolically cut.
During the Edo period, courtesans undergoing mizuage were sponsored by a patron who had the right of taking their virginity. Mizuage has also historically been connected with loss of virginity of maiko, but this practice became illegal in 1959. Afterward, a party would be held for the maiko.
According to anthropologist Liza Dalby, mizuage was an important initiation to womanhood and the geisha world. Mizuage gave way to the next stage of training, the senior maiko. Once the mizuage patron's function (of deflowering the young maiko) was served, he was to have no further relations with the girl.
The money acquired for a maiko’s mizuage was a great sum and it was used to promote her debut as a geisha, but this was not considered by geisha to be an "act of prostitution."
Mineko Iwasaki, a geisha that Arthur Golden met while writing Memoirs of a Geisha described mizuage in her autobiography as being an initiation party, symbolized on the geisha-to-be by a change in hairstyle rather than the loss of virginity. It is a celebration of the passage of girl (maiko) to woman (geisha).
Usage examples of "mizuage".
Two very wealthy men had bid against each other to be her mizuage patron.
With Hatsumomo chasing me around like a housewife chasing a cockroach, I certainly wasn't going to become famous the way Mameha had and end up with an expensive mizuage as a result.
I wasn't sure he would, but Mameha assured me that a man doesn't cultivate a relationship with a fifteen-year-old apprentice geisha unless he has her mizuage in mind.
Which means that the time has come for your mizuage, Sayuri, whether you're ready for it or not.
In any case, when an apprentice geisha becomes available for mizuage, she presents boxes of these ekubo to the men who patronize her.
When the bidding begins for your mizuage, you can be sure that neither will sit still, knowing the prize could be taken by the other.
Mameha came to the okiya and took me into the reception room to tell me that the bidding for my mizuage had begun.
Mameha had told me a little about mizuage, but it seemed to me I was about to learn more.
He did bid quite aggressively for my mizuage, but only during the first few days, until the figure passed ¥8000.
Only a certain kind of man spends his time and money chasing after mizuage, and it turned out that Nobu wasn't one of them.
Crab, he was a man who would probably have chosen suicide the old-fashioned way before allowing someone like Nobu to take a mizuage away from him.
He wanted the mizuage for himself and pouted like a little boy when he began to think he might not win it.
Up to that time, this was the highest ever paid for a mizuage in Gion, and possibly in any of the geisha districts in Japan.
Cash, he said, is often worth less one year than it was the year before, and because of this, Mameha's mizuage in 1929 actually cost more than mine in 1935, even though mine was ¥11,500 while Mameha's was more like ¥7000 or ¥8000.
The fee for my mizuage was more than enough to repay all my debts to the okiya.