Matsugaoka Tōkei-ji, The Divorce Temple

 For more than six hundred years, Matsugaoka Tokei-ji in the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, served as a refuge for women seeking refuge from abusive husbands. At a time when women did not have the right to divorce their husbands, abused women often fled to the sanctum sanctorum of this Buddhist temple. After serving the temple and convent for a specified number of years, Tokei-ji arranged for them to be divorced by their husbands. Popular nicknames for the temple that came into use during this time are enkiri-dera ("temple of breaking relationships"), and kakekomi-dera ("temple to which one runs for refuge"). It is sometimes called a "divorce temple".

The shrine was founded in 1285 by Lady Horiuchi, wife of Hojo Tokimune, the eighth ruler of the Kamakura Shogunate, after her husband's death. Lady Horiuchi was born in 1252 into the powerful Adachi clan and allies of the Hōjō. After his father died when he was one year old, Horiuchi was raised by his older brother Adachi Yasumori, who succeeded Yoshikage as head of the clan and its guardian.

Horiuchi's future husband, Tokimune, was born a year earlier and grew up at the Adachi residence in Kamakura. The two children were probably acquainted from a very young age. Horiuchi married Tokimune when she was nine years old and he was ten. After their marriage, the young couple moved together from the Adachi household into Tokimune's own residence. About seven years later, Tokimune became the ruling shogun, and de facto the most powerful man in the country.

Lady Horiuchi and Hojo Tokimune were both ardent disciples of Zen Buddhism, and actively participated in meditation practice. When Tokimune fell unexpectedly ill in 1284, both he and Lady Horiuchi shaved and wore monk and nun garb. Tokimune took the religious name Hokoji-dono Dōkō, and Lady Horiuchi was given the Buddhist name Kakusan Shidō. Shortly afterward, Tokimune died and Lady Horiuchi vowed to build a shrine in his honor.

Lady Horiuchi did not specifically intend to build Tokei-ji as a refuge for women fleeing their husbands. This reputation derives largely from its activities during the last two centuries of the Tokugawa period, although Tokei-ji had provided a mechanism for women to divorce their husbands since Horiuchi's days as well. Its role is more aptly described during its first four hundred years when it was known as Kakekomi-dera, or "the temple to which one goes for refuge". Some of the leading abbots of the convent originally arrived here in search of refuge, shelter and sanctuary.

According to a historical record of uncertain date and authorship, Lady Horiuchi asked her son Sadaoki to create a temple law at Tokei-ji to help women seeking separation from their husbands. Sadatoki forwarded the request to the Emperor, who approved it. Initially, the period of service in the temple was fixed at three years. Later it was reduced to two years. About 2,000 divorces were granted by Tokei-ji during the Tokugawa period, but after a new law was implemented, the temple lost this right in 1873. All divorce cases were henceforth handled by the Court. After the Meiji Restoration, the temple not only lost its financial support, but the government's anti-Buddhist policies contributed to the demise of the former nunnery.

The temple remained a convent exclusively for women and men were not allowed to enter until 1902, when a man took over the position of abbot and Tōkei-ji became a branch temple under the supervision of Engaku-ji.

The entire temple, except the bell tower, was destroyed in the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, and the temple was slowly rebuilt in the following decade.