A Discussion of The Change Of Family Patterns In Japan From Pre-Meiji To Modern

下面51due教员组为大家整理一篇优秀的代写范文- A Discussion of The Change Of Family Patterns In Japan From Pre-Meiji To Modern Era，供大家参考学习。这篇文章讲述的是家庭是社会的基本要素之一。一方面，家庭变迁是反映社会经济政治发展、伦理道德和社会意义的。另一方面，社会经济的变化会导致家庭的变化。本文拟从相关的社会经济背景出发，探讨日本家庭模式从明治前、战后泡沫前、泡沫后到现代的变迁。

A Discussion of The Change Of Family Patterns In Japan From Pre-Meiji To Modern Era

Family is one of the basic elements of society. On the one hand, the family changes is to reflect the socio-economic and political development, ethics and social meaning. On the other hand, socio-economic changes will lead to changes in the family. In this article, it is to have a discussion of the change of family patterns in Japan from Pre-Meiji &Meiji period, Post-war period before the Bubble, Post-Bubble period to modern era within the relevant socio-economic context.

During Pre-Meiji &Meiji period, Confucian, and agrarian family is the dominant family pattern in Japan, which is closely related to the maintenance of feudal society. During the Pre-Meiji , stem family is a typical family pattern in Japan. They were mostly agrarian family, marked by stabilizing land use and promoting production.  In terms of relationship between families, they take the form of "corporate residential group". Within family, there was unbroken line of inherited management and productivity, and in the lineage family, sole inheritance was the primary concern. The Meiji Restoration in the mid-19th century made Japan begin the first step towards modernization. There was a creation of the Meiji government out of state concern in the establishment of a modernizing nation(White, 2011, p.129). However, the political nature of the alliance between the bourgeoisie and the landlord class and the imperial system of the emperor decided the maintenance of the feudal ideology and the feudal tradition. On the one hand, the government promoted Confucian ethics through education.During Meiji-period,  "good women" refers to "good wife, wise mother". It also stressed the role of inheritance of the traditional family system and family ethics as a way to maintain the Japanese national customs. And also it was good for the establishment and maintenance of family and loyalty to the country together. Thus, the Mikado system was closely integrated with the national concept. In particular, it is to stress the family ties, from the ancestors to the children and grandchildren, which are family system of individual families. The family system is also elevated to the state level, and the emperor is the head of the state, which is made up of numerous family systems. On the other hand, through the legislation of this family system as a civil norms and the prevailing family system as the legal system by The Meiji Civil Code, which was introduced in 1898, the family basically is similar with the feudal warrior class in the Shogunate era.There was "national family" rising. "good family"is the sort of family which stressed duty and loyalty, hierarchy, male-framed family(White, 2011, p.132).  In the family system, the sovereignty of the household, the succession of the family governors, and the inferiority of female in the family constituted the three pillars of the Japanese family system during the period of Pre-Meiji & and Meiji period.  However, during Meiji period, there is some constant change of family patterns with the development of capitalism. More than half a century after the Meiji period , capitalist production relations penetrated into all areas of society.The first wave of urbanization has led to a marked increase in population flow from urban areas to cities(White, 2011, p.129). Japan's social structure, family form and people's thoughts and concepts began to change significantly.

After World War II, there is“Individualist, Consumer, Urban”and  “Strong  gender- based” family.  In family life, the family's educational function began to win the attention of city's new middle-class family when race to collage degree began (White, 2011, p.134). Their children's upbringing, educational concepts has experienced some significant changes, including breastfeeding, regular feeding, the habit of holding the child, whether the child should be raised by the mother or can not be handed over to grandparents and nannies and so on. Family’s awareness of training children was increasingly clear. Family expenses increases the child's education costs, and to plan a happy future for the children has become an important task of the family. In addition, the urban families increasingly become nuclear family. And there is dichotomy between gender. Father become the salary man to feed the family. He will work six-day a week to financial support. Being not at home for most of his time, he is being treated as the guest of home. And he in general doing no housework. After husband turns the salary over to his wife, it is for wife to hold the budgeting and allocating for the family . The strong gender role remains in family responsibility emphasizing on parent-child ties over husband-wife relations. This leads to a more dependent society, instead of a more individualistic society. For mother, she is a full-time housewife, who is in charge of childrens’ well-being and education, which is called education mother who decides characters, motivation for study and capabilities of children in the Japanese society(White, 2011, p.134). The equivalence of motherhood and nurturing is of utmost importance in Japanese value. They are willing to devote all the life to care about children and feel meaningful. They do all the housework and have good relationships with children.  In terms of ideology, media, educational theory, popular entertainment and other areas introduced the new family concepts and terms. Family publications have started, and a lot of manginess have also opened up a family column. Influential publications also began to criticize the emphasis on filial piety and family governor and other old family concept. There are full of promotion of image of loving husband and wife and the child-centered European and American families. The works with theme of love, marriage, mother-in-law and family suppressing female was widely published and widely welcomed.

After World War II, abolishing the old family system, and the establishment of the concept of democracy under the family is the major problems facing Japanese family during this period. there is also diversification and loose connections between family. This change began in the 1960s. The old family system was one of the strong spiritual pillars of the Mikado system before the war, which provided Japan with cheap labor and institutional guarantees. After World War II, Japan entered the period of rapid economic growth. Japan began to the reform of democratizing of various fields. And social science and public opinion naturally focus on the issue of the "democratization" of family life . It is about the abolition of the "family" system and the changes in family life connected with it. The so-called family system refers to a sort of family values which regards the survival of the family as the basic principle, with a patriarchal system of male household ownership, parental rights, dog rights and other family relations system having direct impact on family. The "home" of the traditional Japanese family in the 1960s begins the shift to "nuclear family" a family-type in modern European and American countries. In those family, the pursuit of freedom and democracy become fashionable. Personal freedom is often given priority to or placed above the family. In addition to this, the pursuit of freedom and affluence of life in the Japanese family bring increasingly busy personal life and more and more distant family relationships. To the 80's, Japan appeared family crisis. In the 1990's family life in Japan is increasingly diversified. Today with the industrialization and modernization, the Japanese society has undergone tremendous changes. Japan's family life is marked by the coexistence of emergence of diversity and similarity.

After the Second World War, old family system thus collapse finally with the legal, economic and social changes. Japan enacted the new "Constitution" and a series of law in accordance with this principles of constitution stipulates a substantial revision of the civil law, and abolition of the authoritarian parents and eldest son’s priority of inheritance, emphasizing equality of the couple in marriage, inheritance and other issues. Another major reason for the change in Japanese industrialization after World War II was changing the economic base of family life. Socio-economic change can also cause changes in the family. The first industry, with family labor as the core, began to decline from the 1950s, and the number of wage laborers working outside the home increased. This means that the experience, knowledge and skills of older persons, who can play a role in the traditional individual business, no longer have the same value in the era of new business knowledge and technological innovation. The former family system’s the living foundation no longer exists. The significance of family property has also changed, or that they themselves have lost the former meaning. The increase in the number of wage-earners has also weakened the inevitability of living with older parents. The demand for labor in cities has concentrated young people in the cities, leaving the elderly in the countryside. Pension model in the traditional Japanese family has been affected from all aspects. In this process, the structure, shape, function, family members of the interpersonal relationship and the concept of family and other aspects of the Japanese family have changed. Family lost its role as unit of production but become unit of consumption.

However, there is also a slight change of family patterns in Japan when the economic recession hit Japan and economic bubble appeared. In the Post-Bubble Era of Japan, there was weak consumption and employment picture remained rather grim(“The Japanese Economy in 1998: A review of events and challenges for the future”). Given such bad economical situation and pressure, there was a shrink of nuclear family. After increasing to 59.5 % in 1990, the proportion of nuclear households since then has been on a gradual decline, totaling just 56.4 % in 2010. In addition, women began to make moves. Japanese women who were in the domestic domains and  was in charge of family housework in 1990’ stampeded out of the kitchen and entered into the workforce to provide the financial support to family as well. "Free labor" can be both female and male. Also, it is harder for young couple to make the decision of marriage. The divorce rate among middle age couples and couples of retirement age has increased.

Compared to the traditional family, modern Japanese family life have undergone tremendous changes and showed more similarities with western countries. Under the great influence of western thoughts, there is a mix of American views and traditional views in terms of concept of family and family operations. Discrimination of female in the family life is forbid, not only by laws, but also by the mainstream society. There is equal gender relationship, which is greatly promoted.  The number of people who do not marry marginally increased. Among single Men in 2016, almost one in four of youth remain unmarried. The divorce rate from 1962,  2000 to 2008 has seen a sharp rise and slight decline, which is 0.73,  2.3 , and 2.0 (per 1,000 persons)(Akiba, and Ishikawa, 1995, p.589-601). It can be seen that the divorce rate is still remaining at a high level at 2.0. Thus the old Patriarchal and Bureaucratic structure has changed to current Maternal and Individual system. In addition, men and women’s family roles change as well with mother working outside and children staying more in home. Instead, young sibling share more responsibility of childcare. Those aspect shows that the increasing similarity between the western countries and Japanese families. However, in the modern Japanese family, there is still trace of traditional families of Japan. It is still believed by the Japanese society that men should work outside the home. In terms of family up brings, girls and boys should be brought up in a different way. Although more and more women has entered the work force now, in the minds and values of the Japanese society, women are more suited to household work and child rearing , instead of doing office work at work places. With the number of full time housewives decreasing, full time housewives are valuable to society. Despite those general pattern of family, there is more diversity of family, which means more and more non fixed type family.

To sum up, the family in Japan is Confucian, and agrarian family during Pre-Meiji &Meiji period, During Post-war period before the Bubble, there is establishment of“individualist, consumer, urban”and “strong  gender- based” family and abolishing of old family system. Post-Bubble period to modern era, more women began to work. In the modern era, more similarities with western countries appeared. But despite the industrialization and urbanization process, the family in Japan is still the basic organizational unit of social life and economic activity.

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