Unmasking Japan today

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One of the few areas in which Japan remained independent of Western influence during this time was with regard to the institution of the family. Despite the modernization of lifesty;es and many other speheres of Japanese society, ie (the traditional family system), which had previously existed among the upper class, was codified and enforced throughout Japan regardless of social status.

Many practices unworthy of imitation were discarded. What is most characteristic about Japan's effort to learn from the West is its spirit of independence in incorporating only those elements that would be advantageous to it. Japan succeded in keeping its ethos and cultural-spiritual traditions intact while assimilating Western knowledge and technology.

Changes in the Japanese Family System

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the basis of the contemporary Japanese family rests upon the fuedal conecpt of ie, which may be translated as "stem family." More specifically, ie is defined as "a vertically composite form of nuclear families, one from each generation" or a "series of first sons, their wives and minor children."

This feudal family structure came into existence during the Edo era among the upper strata of Japanese society, that is, aristocrats, the shogunate and samurai warriors. Under the ie system, the continuation of the family line from one generation to another depended upon the existence of male offspring in the family.

During this period, there was no ie system among th lower classes of Japanese society- peasants, artisans, merchants or eta (the class of untouchables). Although all except eta had names, these were not family names but names given to indicate their occupations. In this conext, the family was a functional unit defined by its economic activities. All of these classes engaged in economic production, and family members included not only blood relatives but also tenants and servants.

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Even though the the Meiji Restoration in 1868 ended the fuedal era in Japan, it was only after enforcement of the Civil Code in 1898 that the class system was officialy abolished, and the Japanese people were united as one under the emperor. In cosequence, the ie systen came to characterize bothe upper-and lower-class families, with each family directyly subordinate to the emperor. Thus, the Meiji restoration strengthened the hierarchical nature of the traditional Japanese family ratther than modernizing it.


The Changing Status of Women

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Despite Japan's high levels of economic, industrial and technological development, the status of women in Japanese society is not yet on par with that of women in Western industrial nations. One of the primary reasons for their continued inferiority can be found in the way that Japan's modernization process had occured; radical changes in women's legal rights were imposed from above... (i.e., by the American occupatoon forces), while traditional mores regarding women's place in society have been slow in changing. Therefore, despite the many laws that given women the legal right to equality at home, at work, and in politics, the reality is somewhat different.

In ancient and medieval times, women enjoyed same status as men.

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The gradual subordination of Japanese women occurred over the centuries and is most directly related to the establishment of the traditional family systems., which is based on patriarchal authority.

Wives began to join their husbands' faimilies, granting property to a daughter would who would eventually leave the family meant handing over part of the family estate to another family.

After the Meiji restoration, when the ie system was enforced legally throughout Japan, the male head of household assumed full legal authority for all family members. The 1898 Civil Code favoured the husband in marriage, property rights, and other aspects of family laws. Adultery constitued legal grounds for divorce only if committed by the wife, and fathers retained custody of the children in all cases of divorce. In the event of her husband's death, the wife came under the authority of the eldest sonm thus following Confucian dictum that a women should in youth obey her father, in maturity obey her husband, and in old age her son. Some have argued that it as this Confucian philosophy and the long feudal experience of Japan that combined to restrict the freedom of women and force them into complete subodination to men.