 Japanese
family structure - In Japan, as in every country,
the family is the earliest focus of social life for an
individual, and it provides a model of social organization
for most later encounters with the wider world. Yet, as uchi
(内), the Japanese family does not have clear boundaries. At
times, it may refer to a nuclear family of parents and
unmarried children. On other occasions, it refers to a line
of descent, and on still others, it refers to the household
as a unit of production or consumption.
A great number of family forms have existed historically in
Japan, from the matrilocal customs of the Heian. With the
promulgation of the Domestic Relations and Inheritance Law
in 1898, the Japanese government institutionalized more
rigid family controls than most people had known in the
feudal period. Individuals were registered in an official
family registry. In the early twentieth century, each family
was required to conform to the ie (家; household) system,
with a multigenerational household under the legal authority
of a household head. In establishing the ie system, the
government moved the ideology of family in the opposite
direction of trends resulting from urbanization and
industrialization. The ie system took as its model for the
family the Confucian-influenced pattern of the upper classes
of the Tokugawa period. Authority and responsibility for all
members of the ie lay legally with the household head. Each
generation supplied a male and female adult, with a
preference for inheritance by the first son and for
patrilocal marriage. When possible, daughters were expected
to marry out, and younger sons were expected to establish
their own households. Women could not legally own or control
property or select spouses. The ie system thus artificially
restricted the development of individualism, individual
rights, women's rights, and the nuclearization of the
family. It formalized patriarchy and emphasized lineal and
instrumental, rather than conjugal and emotional ties,
within the family.
 After
World War II, the Allied occupation forces established a new
family ideology based on equal rights for women, equal
inheritance by all children, and free choice of spouse and
career. From the late 1960s, most marriages in Japan have
been based on the mutual attraction of the couple and not
the arrangement by the parents (omiai お見合い). Moreover,
arranged marriages might begin with an introduction by a
relative or family friend, but actual negotiations do not
begin until all parties, including the bride and groom, are
satisfied with the relationship.
Under the ie system, only a minority of households included
three generations at a time because nonsuccessor sons (those
who were not heirs) often set up their own household. From
1970 to 1983, the proportion of three-generation households
fell from 19 % to 15 % of all households, while two
generation households consisting of a couple and their
unmarried children increased only slightly, from 41 % to 42
% of all households. The greatest change has been the
increase in couple-only households and in elderly
single-person households.
Public opinion surveys in the late 1980s seemed to confirm
the statistical movement away from the three-generation ie
family model. Half of the respondents did not think that the
first son had a special role to play in the family, and
nearly two-thirds rejected the need for adoption of a son in
order to continue the family. Other changes, such as an
increase in filial violence and school refusal, suggest a
breakdown of strong family authority.
Official statistics, however, indicate that Japanese
concepts of family continued to diverge from those in the
United States in the 1980s. The divorce rate, although
increasing slowly, remained at 1.3 per 1,000 marriages in
1987, low by international standards. Strong gender roles
remained the cornerstone of family responsibilities. Most
survey respondents said that family life should emphasize
parent-child ties over husband-wife relations. Nearly 80 %
of respondents in a 1986 government survey believed that the
ancestral home and family grave should be carefully kept and
handed on to one's children. More than 60 % thought it best
for elderly parents to live with one of their children. This
sense of family as a unit that continues through time is
stronger among people who have a livelihood to pass down,
such as farmers, merchants, owners of small companies, and
physicians, than among urban salary and wage earners.
Anthropologist Jane M. Bachnik noted the continued emphasis
on continuity in the rural families she studied. Uchi (here,
the contemporary family) were considered the living members
of an ie, which had no formal existence. Yet, in each
generation, there occurred a sorting of members into
permanent and temporary members, defining different levels
of uchi.
Various family life-styles exist side by side in
contemporary Japan. In many urban salaryman families, the
husband may commute to work and return late, having little
time with his children except for Sundays, a favorite day
for family outings. The wife might be a "professional
housewife," with nearly total responsibility for raising
children, ensuring their careers and marriages, running the
household, and managing the family budget. She also has
primary responsibility for maintaining social relations with
the wider circles of relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances
and for managing the family's reputation. Her social life
remains separate from that of her husband. It is
increasingly likely that in addition to these family
responsibilities, she may also have a part-time job or
participate in adult education or other community
activities. The closest emotional ties within such families
are between the mother and children.
In other families, particularly among the self-employed,
husband and wife work side by side in a family business.
Although gender-based roles are clear cut, they might not be
as rigidly distinct as in a household where work and family
are more separated. In such families, fathers are more
involved in their children's development because they have
more opportunity for interacting with them.
As women worked outside of the home with increasing
frequency beginning in the 1970s, there was pressure on
their husbands to take on more responsibility for housework
and child care. Farm families, who depend on nonfarm
employment for most of their income, are also developing
patterns of interaction different from those of previous
generations.
Information source: “Japanese family.” wikipedia.org.
Article date: 6 Jan. 2008. Retrieved: Wikipedia. 4 Feb. 2008
<Japanese family>.
Video - The following is a family anime
show called Sazae-san, サザエさん. |
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