著者
ライカイ ジョンボル
出版者
京都大学
雑誌
京都社会学年報 : KJS
巻号頁・発行日
vol.10, pp.189-200, 2002-12-25

Due to industrialization the values and norms of traditional families, regardless of cultures and societies, underwent sweeping changes bringing about new features of the family. These changes are generally called the modernization of the family. Numerous family researchers have made enormous efforts to describe the characteristic features of the modern family, efforts which have not been as simple as they may seem to be. These features have been examined from various aspects such as family structure (type and size), relationships between family members (internal aspects), as well as connections between family and society (external aspects). So far these features have mainly been studied separately, paying little attention to possible relations between them. However, according to a survey of thirty people, carried out by the author in 2001 in Kyoto city, such relations are possible. Though the original aim of the survey was not to explore possible relations, it was found that there is a reversed relationship between nuclearization of the family and growing `parental love' towards children in the ideal family pattern. That is to say, while the interviewees mainly prefered the two-generation nuclear family type .for their own happiness, they chose the -three-generation family type as an ideal model for socialization of their children. There is a contradiction here. If one admits both nuclearization and growing `parental love' towards children undergoing simultanously as features of the modern family, then it is surprising to see such a reversed relationship between them in the ideal family pattern. If the nuclear family type is a generally accepted ideal form, then it should refer to each of the family members. However, the interviewees regard it .as an ideal merely for their own happiness, but not for the socialization of their children. Though there is no full explanation for this phenomenon yet, it must .be taken into account that.the present survey was carried out in 2001, a time when the modern Japanese family had already been swinging since the late 1970's~ slowly entering a post-modern period. Thus, one should reconsider the (possibly -changing) meaning of `parental love' in a changing society, while examining if the result of this survey merely refers to the Kyoto area, or if it is a much more general phenomenon.
著者
ライカイ ジョンボル
出版者
京都大学
雑誌
京都社会学年報 : KJS
巻号頁・発行日
vol.11, pp.119-133, 2003-12-25

This paper mainly throws light on a phenomenon that might have escaped family researchers' attention. Th.e pattern of "the husband works outside, the wife stays at home" is pointed out. to be a feature of the modern family as a result of industrialization. However, according to the results of my survey in 2001 in Kyoto city, informants consider this pattern to be a traditional division of role between the spouses, which creates a contradiction between the position of family sociology and common people's image about the pre-industrial times. Therefore, to find the reasons for what causes the "traditionalization" of the modern family in common peoples' image becomes an important issue for family sociology. From the interviews, I pointed out three phenomena as possible reasons. Firstly, one can explain it as a reaction to the increasing number of "career woman" (working woman) since the 1980's. Women who do not stay at home, but work like men, may create a new form against "the husband works outside, the wife stays at home" pattern with the result that the latter becomes "traditional". But findings show that it may not be the only reason. From the interviews, it turns out that the informants confuse two different types of divisions of role in their mind that might be a further reason for "traditionalizing". One type refers to the division of the housework, while the other one refers to the question of who is the breadwinner in the family. The former one has not gone through radical change since the pre-industrial times, while the latter one has. In pre-industrial Japan, women used to work in the fields, shops or workshops helping their .h-usbands, besides doing the housework. Due to industrialization, women do not work with their husband together any more, but they stay at home, running housework issues mainly. The informants in my survey unconsciously focus on the fact that the housework has always been the job of the women, therefore they consider the pattern of "the husband works outside, the wife stays at home" traditional - which actually refers to the question of who is the breadwinner. From the interviews, one can see a third reason too. Although peasants, craftsmen and merchants constituted the vast majority of the Japanese society in the past, the informants in my survey focus on the warriors' small stratum, while talking about the past. In the warriors' families, wives did not work with,,their husbands the way wives in other families did. By focusing on the warriors' stratum instead of that of the peasants etc., the informants regard it as a traditional pattern. This kind of "traditionalization" can be named 'spontaneous traditionalization', which does not belong to any categories of Hobsbawm's typology, which mainly focuses on intentionally invented traditions. Therefore, I consider that "spontaneous traditionalization" could be added to Hobsbawm's typology as a further category.