著者
川口 恵美子
出版者
日本生活学会
雑誌
生活学論叢 (ISSN:24332933)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.1, pp.41-53, 1996-09-30 (Released:2021-03-29)

I hear that more than five hundred thousand women were widowed by the World War II in Japan, however only a thesis on them can't be found. Soldiers' deathes of that war were highly admired especially during the war, and they were deified as the national heroes in Yasukuni shrine. Therefore we call the war widows "Wives of Yasukuni", who were taken care of by nation then. Japan defeated in 1945, the war widows lost then honorable positions as well as compensations. In those days, they were still young; seventy percent under thirty five with two or more children on the average. Unfortunately, after the War, they were forced to make very hard livings especially till 1952 because of three factors mainly as follows. First, they were very short of the abilities to lead their independent lives. The second is the discrimination against the fatherless families "The same in an American Society", Lynn Caine told us in "WIDOW" in 1974. Last of all, they have borne the spiritual burden of the families of military personnel's who were thought to be responsible for the War. As things change, positions of the war-widows as between victims and helpers have changed under Japanese social circumstances.