That is literally all scholars have to go on. note We know Murasaki was a Fujiwara and a lady in waiting to Empress Shoshi, and the only Fujiwara lady in waiting Michinaga mentions that fits the time period is Fujiwara no Takako. Incidentally, Michinaga's court diary gives the names of several ladies-in-waiting at the time and some scholars have suggested that Murasaki and one lady named "Fujiwara no Takako" are one and the same. In it, she recounts exchanges, poetic and otherwise, with the Empress's father, the chief minister Michinaga - which has suggested an affair between them to some readers, and sexual harassment on Michinaga's part to others. Her 'Diary' is an autobiographical fragment covering perhaps two of the years she spent at court. Murasaki portrays herself as melancholic and reserved and feeling out of place and unhappy at court - though she admits she is no happier at home. She began her service at court in the entourage of the Empress Akiko in the early years of the 11th c. It's known, because Murasaki herself tells us so in her 'Diary', that she was depressed and unhappy after her husband's death, but whether she was drowned in grief or only depressed over the loss of his economic and social support she doesn't say. She had at least one child, a daughter named Katako who became a noted writer like her mother (under the name Daini no Sanmi ), but was widowed after only two or three years of marriage.
Late in the 990s, Murasaki became one of the several wives of her second cousin Fujiwara no Nobutaka, an official of the Ministry of Ceremonials and man about the Court.
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