THE JAPANESE FAMILY SYSTEM
by Hani Setsuko, 1948
Site Ed: From the time of its enactment in 1898, the Japanese Civil Code, especially provisions for the household (ie), fell under increasing attack by women's groups and male sympathizers. In July 1946, during Diet debates on the proposed new Constitution, Representative Katō Shizue, a prewar advocate of women's rights and a leading figure in the family planning movement, had demanded revision of the Civil Code for failing to recognize the rights of wives. At the end of Pacific War, she had herself undergone a difficult divorce procedure which required the permission of male family members. Another prominent critic of the Code and family system was Hani Setsuko (1903- 1987), educator, writer for the magazine Fujin no tomo (Friend of Women), and activist with socialist leanings. She had been educated at the Jiyū Gakuen (Liberty School), a private academy founded in the early 1920s by her mother, pioneer woman journalist Hani Matoko. Her husband was historian Hani Gorō, a frequent target of Occupation censorship for his Marxist scholarship. Later, her famous film director son, Hani Susumu, would continue to question lingering good wife/wise mother ideology and middle class mores in New Wave cinema of the 1960s.
In 1948, Hani Setsuko published an forceful essay for the Japan Institute of Pacific Affairs, "The Japanese Family System—as Seen from the Standpoint of Japanese Women." In common with other critics who wrote on the family system, Hani referred to existing practices in Japan as "feudal." She argued:
In most cases, the study of the family system so far conducted in this country is of a nature of legal interpretations by college professors on some aspects of the family system and it has proved falling far short of getting at the realities of the family system as it prevails in this country. Naturally, we have been dissatisfied with this kind of study. Therefore, when I took upon myself the task of making a report on the Japanese family system on behalf of the Nihon Taiheiyo Mondai Chosaki (the Japanese Institute of Pacific Studies), I have sought for a new method for getting at the real facts about the family system through a series of discussions with my husband, Hani Goro, whom I respect as a historian and scholar, on this problem.
In addition, Hani cited her personal studies of judicial records under the guidance of a Japanese lawyer and a judge and the observations in rural areas of her female research assistant. Another source was letters sent to a new radio program, "Women's Hour." Although she did not mention it, this program and others like it, such as the "Children's Hour" and the "Farm Hour" were in fact initiated by the Occupation's Civil Information and Education Section, GHQ, in consultation with the national broadcasting network, NHK, as a key part of the reorientation program for Japan. Otherwise, throughout her essay, Hani relied exclusively on male scholars. In her words:
In the first place, I learned that problems of the family system as they appeared in judicial cases were almost invariably problems of property. In a negative way, this led me to the conclusion that judicial records cannot furnish materials for dealing with the problem of the family system of the Japanese people as a whole, as they are concerned almost exclusively with the family troubles of the people of the middle class and up. In a positive way, however, I found, firstly, that the problems pertaining to the family system are necessarily problems of property instead of mere customs of sentiments; secondly, that the existing legal system in this country is mainly in the interests of the propertied classes; and, thirdly, that a way to the settlement of the problem of the family system faced by the people in general, is not found in the mere revision of laws, the enactment of a new Civil Code, the revision of the court system and other legal measures which are beyond the reach of the ordinary people, but must necessarily be sought in the solution of a basic social problem underlying it.
...I believe that when women and children find themselves organized in farmers' and workers' unions, most of the problems of the Japanese family system will be satisfactorily solved.
To Hani, the new Constitution (which became effective May 3, 1947) was a document of enlightenment and not mere law. It guaranteed sex equality and respect for the individual. She argued that efforts in Meiji times to mold a modern state—in outcome a bourgeois state—had been frustrated by conservative elements. Thus, enlightened moves were set back by the adoption of the "disgraceful" Civil Code. The "idea of the quality of both sexes was enounced simply as light and frivolous peculiar to America." Thus, enlightened moves were set back by the adoption of the "disgraceful" Civil Code. The "idea of the equality of both sexes was denounced simply as light and frivolous peculiar to America." Hani recited its well-known repressive features. It opposed the right of a widow in the absence of an heir to succession to a house. It did not set up a house centering around individuals but rather around a single male patriarch, with "excessive power." Fathers, too, were victims of the family system.
Characterized by such feudalistic family community, it is only natural that there has grown up in Japan a concept of woman peculiar to itself. Submission being considered the feminine virtue, women in this country have long been deprived of the freedom of criticism in the name of obedience, gracefulness or the womanly gentleness to hush up a matter. Especially, during the late war, this non-critical attitude was brought to the fore as "the non-arguing mind" which constitutes an attribute of the Japanese spirit. It was imposed not only on the fair sex but also on the young people in general. Under the circumstances, resignation has offered a place of refuge to Japanese women, and in resignation have they found their only life—philosophy...
The status of women is said to be the measure of the development of civilization of a society. In fact, it becomes clear that Japanese women are still under the yoke of feudalistic influences, it we consult the marriage and divorce laws in the existing Civil Code. So far as the position of women is concerned, marriage, which should mean their lifelong happiness, is necessarily considered on the basis of a "house" but never keynoted by the personality of their husbands. Even if a "house" or "lineage" may be taken up for consideration, respect of the personality of wives is utterly disregarded. The Civil Code provides that a wife does not enjoy the freedom of conducts, be they personal, of property or concerning business, these requiring her husband's permission. The wife's conducts without her husband's permission may be cancelled by the latter...Adultery is taken up as the cause of divorce only against a wife. In justification of this unfair and partial treatment, it is explained that, although adultery committed by a husband does not directly affect his lineage, that committed by his wife does general strain to the family line.
Hani, in much the same vein as Japanese women before her, going back to the 1880s, railed against the practice of concubinage, unfair treatment of the wife, and the power of the head of a house in rural areas to sell out underage daughters as prostitutes or geisha. It was none other than selling children into slavery through borrowing money in advance. "To make the situation still worse, these country girls have often left their folks to follow a shameful calling, encouraged by the mistaken idea that to sacrifice themselves for their house was a virtue of the female sex." It was none other than selling children into slavery, she said, through borrowing money in advance. "To make the situation still worse, these country girls have often left their folks to follow a shameful calling, encouraged by the mistaken idea that to sacrifice themselves for their house was a virtue of the female sex." The order of birth was more important than the basic rights of individuals; a wife was excluded as an inheritor to property. "Marriage robs a woman of her right as its legal effect in regard to property." Hani referred constantly to the "feudalistic family system," with its emphasis on continuity of the household lineage. She pointed to change in form that were in fact already under way: the number of members under one roof, for example, was decreasing. However, although the household "head is losing his economic power," he still commanded "unreasonable" power, which was an "impediment to the improvement of the status of individuals and aggravating the already miserable position of women and other powerless members." This of course was a reference to the still miserable economic and social conditions in Occupied Japan.
...Japanese women are especially looking forward to the revision of the Civil Code with great expectations. Under the situation, general attention is increasingly focused on various problems concerning the family system, as may be gathered from the fact that nearly half of the correspondences sent by women to the Women's Hour Section of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation [known today as NHK] during the period from January to March, 1947, were related in some way or other with the family system. Of these correspondences, complaints of troubles experienced by widows and young wives, numbered the most, while problems between wives and their in-laws came next...
In closing, Hani warned of opposing views at the highest level of government. In evidence, she quoted Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru's response to a recent interpellation on the Diet floor: "Although Article 22 of the new Constitution aims at discarding all feudalistic elements from the family system, the system itself is a wholesome custom of this country." Her source for Yoshida's remark was legal scholar Aoyma Michio, whose critique she next cited with approval:
It is common in this country that the family system, even when implying a feudalistic or patriarchal one, is taken as a system which transcends history and claims universality…The prevalence of such a misinterpretation of this system should be attributed mostly to a group of reactionary and conservative scholars, who have served the Government as its mouthpieces since the Meiji era...There is no doubt that the Meiji Restoration was in itself an epoch-making revolution for overthrowing the feudal regime. But as it is frequently pointed out, this revolution as not very thoroughgoing in manner, failing, as a result, far short of liquidating the patriarchal and feudalist elements of the family system.
In reinforcement of this view, Hani declared: "On this greatest historical occasion the Japanese people should not repeat the same folly they committed at the time of the Meiji Restoration." In the future, would it be up to the state which had liberated women from the household (ie) to take care of them in place of the former household head? This remark was perhaps a reference to the passage of the Livelihood Protection Law, September 1946, a major step in Japanese welfare legislation and an answer to those who were worried about the fate of widows. "I believe, however, that the democratic life newly introduced to the people will not be one which gives shelter and protection under the gloomy 'house,' but which promises fair and responsible protection by society."
Hani and her feminist colleagues would continue to face rebuttal from conservatives who expressed fear that young women would confuse emancipation with license. In losing respect for chastity, they would fall into degeneration. Feminists fought back in support of the new Civil Code, which was undergoing revision through 1947, and pointed to the shame of licensed prostitution as a more likely path to disrespect and exploitation.
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Reference
Hani, Setsuko. The Japanese Family System, as Seen from the Standpoint of Japanese Women. Tokyo: Japan Institute of Pacific Studies/The International Publishing Company, 1948.
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