著者

野々村 淑子

出版者

九州大学

雑誌

大学院教育学研究紀要 (ISSN:13451677)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.4, pp.103-124, 2001

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This paper aims to clear the process of construction of modern 'Motherhood' in America. The modern 'Motherhood' is our image of mother who nurtures her child with love and affection, who thinks her maternal role is the most important of her family's and her own life, and who makes efforts of learning knowledge about child-rearing through books, magazines and so on. This image of modern 'Motherhood' was constructed by women in the early 19th century in the North America. The genre of 'domestic literatures' emerged in this period accompanied by industrialization and urbanization. The big printing and publishing industry rose, and they published and advertised a lot of published materials. The place of working and living were gradually divided, and 'home' had become 'women's sphere'. The image of 'home' of 'middling class', which is the new conscious of class, is formed by the father who is 'white-collar' worker and 'bread-giver', the mother who is the central symbol of the affectionate 'ome' and has the image described above, and the loving children. Women, who wanted be a member of 'middling class', bought and read 'domestic literatures', and the market of this genre grew. Women also wrote and constructed the new image of 'home' and 'motherhood', that is, the modem image of 'Motherhood'. On the one side, 'Affection' of 'Motherhood' was also discovered in the modern social theories and Protestant ministry's didactics as very effective means of education, 'Self-government' is the most important ideal of modernity, but they knew the difficulties of the education of the persons who could govern themselves. They discovered the 'Affection' of 'Mother' as the tool that could input the soft authority in the child's inner self. They also tried to find the position of 'Mother' in the modern society. On the other side, women who wrote and read 'domestic literatures' constructed 'Motherhood' as their 'selves'. They also participated in the formation of the 'Self-government' ideal for themselves. The 'Motherhood' constructed by women had the crucial paradox about the woman's 'Self'. It was 'Self-government' without 'Self' , that is, 'Self-denial', 'Self-sacrifice' and so on. But it was the only basis of women's ' Self' , that is 'Independence'. 'Affection', which was the symbol of women's 'weakness' in the colonial period, changed to be the women's 'Privilege' and 'Precedence'. 'Affection' functioned as the rhetoric of the specific remedy to dissolve the paradox of 'Motherhood' in women's discourses. In the later 19th and 20th centuries, this image of modern 'Motherhood' took the important role in the origins of Welfare States, the systems of education, and the relationship of parent and child.