Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (28 page)

The Mamachi family has less direct control over occupational choice than over marital choice. Indeed, it has little reason to interfere with the son's occupational choice as long as it fits with the family's standard of respectability. Farmers and members of lower socio-economic groups placing a son in a small business concern still have considerable responsibility for making the necessary personal contacts. In the salary-man family, because hiring is largely determined by examinations or introductions, the child requires parental support only for preparing him for admission to a good academic institution. Once admitted, even if the boy does need financial help from his parents, his career plans are essentially outside the scope of his parents' planning. An academic degree and school contacts give a boy security so that he will not have to call on his parents for assistance in finding a new job if something should go wrong in his present place of work. Thus, even the first son in the salaried family has gained considerable freedom from his parents' domination without the necessity of rebelling against his parents, a situation in striking contrast to the first sons of farmers, owners of small businesses, and independent professionals.

Despite the massive inroads into the authority and economic significance of the
ie
in salaried families, there still is a strong attachment to this concept. Even branch families have a strong desire to continue the family line and an overwhelming hope that the family have at least one son to continue the family name. In fact, most families say they would like two sons and one daughter, so that if

[16] Though I do not have adequate survey data, my impression is that it would be somewhat lower than the national average, which is about 10 percent.

something should happen to one son they would still have one to continue the family line. The feeling remains that an
ie
has a tradition and that the person becoming a member of the
ie
should learn the family's customs and share the feeling of belonging to a long line of ancestors.

As much as they would like to adopt a son or son-in-law, few are willing to accept the problems this raises.
^[17]
But there is a common compromise solution in Mamachi to the problem of having no heir: a family finding someone who accepts no other family responsibility than that of taking on the family name and looking after the family ancestral plots and plaques. If a family has only a daughter, at the time of her marriage they may work out an arrangement with her husband whereby she would enter her husband's
ie
and take on his name and family line, providing that one male child of theirs be given her maiden name to continue the
ie
into which she was born. According to another arrangement, if a man has no children to continue his name, he may ask a second son of one of his brothers or other near relatives to take on his family name. In some main families with no children, a child of relatives may still be adopted, but increasingly among salaried families agreements are reached whereby someone will continue the family name without being required to change residence.

Even the branch families often have a feeling of attachment to their ancestral home, although separated from it by generations. Many modern salary men, when asked where their home (
kuni
) is, will answer not their birthplace or their father's birthplace but the rural village where their grandfather or even great-grandfather was born. They may not expect to visit there, although if necessary they usually will be willing to help look after the family graves and ancestral tablets, but they retain a feeling of sentimental attachment which helps define their place in the world for now and ages yet to come.

[17] This conforms to Professor Koyama's findings that only 21.8 percent of the dwellers of an urban apartment project (largely salary men) would be willing to adopt a son-in-law if they had only daughters, while as many as 90.1 percent of farmers living in a community within commuting distance of Tokyo would adopt a son-in-law. If a family had no children, 35.6 percent of the city apartment dwellers think it necessary to provide for an heir, but 89.4 percent of the farmers think so. Koyama,
op. cit
.

The
ie
was not simply a companionship family as in the West. It was a set of rules about how members were to behave and how the organization was to operate regardless of the sentiment or the convenience of the family members. One person had to be chosen as family head and all other members were to relate to each other depending on their position within the
ie
. It was a set of principles that governed the relationship of family members to each other.

Family relationships are now less governed by principles than by sentiment, power, and convenience. If the branch family has more wealth and power than a main family, it no longer is obliged to subordinate itself to the main family simply because it is the branch. A young man looking for a job or a marital partner may listen to his parents because of their authority, because he is fond of them, or because he respects their judgment. He is no longer obliged to follow his father's or his elder brother's wishes simply because of an obligation to obey the head of the
ie
. A person seeking financial assistance may go to his relatives for help, but he does not necessarily go to the family head, nor is the family head necessarily responsible for looking after the welfare of all members of the
ie
. He goes to relatives for assistance, not because of their position in the
ie
but because he feels close to them or because they are in a position to offer assistance.
^[18]
If one visits the main family, it is not because it is part of a required formality. If the oldest son has the major responsibility of looking after the parents, it is likely to be because he has the kind of job and housing situation that make him most able to bear this burden.

The power of
ie
principles has given way under the impact of new ideology: of forming branch families with a shallow sense of tradition and the growth of large firms providing security and welfare services. The weakening of
ie
principles has not led to chaos, because a new familial order has arisen based on sentiment and a sharp division of labor and authority. It is to the nature of this new order that we turn in the next chapters.

[18] Evidence from historical materials indicates that Japanese kinship terminology does not distinguish between relatives of one's father and one's mother. Cf. Robert Smith in Robert J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley, eds.,
Japanese Culture,
New York: The Viking Fund, 1962. With the decline of jural relationships between
ie
members, there appears to be no clear predominance of relationships with one side of the family as opposed to the other.

In Japanese coastal villages, some fishing boats are strictly for men, and the idea of a woman even boarding a ship is so abhorrent that many myths and superstitions dramatize the punishments for such a transgression. To many traditional Japanese, the idea of a man working in the home is as repulsive as the idea of a woman boarding a fishing boat, and while I know of no myths about the horrors awaiting a man who enters a kitchen, many Japanese young adults cannot recall ever having seen their fathers in a kitchen.

Even the terminology which has been passed down to today makes it clear that the wife's place has been in the home: The husband still refers to his wife as his
kanai
(literally, inside of the house), and friends and acquaintances call a housewife
okusan
(literally, the person in the back, i.e., of the house). Just as a captain stays on the ship when others leave, the wife looks after the house while others are away. In the past, the division of labor within the home was so complete that, when a husband helped in the home, it was thought peculiar and even improper.

This basic pattern of division of labor has been widely accepted even by urban branch families. Traditionally, the husband did not have to make use of his authority to maintain the division of labor because it was thoroughly accepted as just and natural by the wife as well as the husband. It was so highly internalized that many men could not prepare themselves a cup of tea in their wife's absence, and, if one did, women who heard of such incidents spontaneously responded with sympathy for the poor man left in such a predicament.

This division of labor remains strong even in contemporary Mamachi. What characterizes the salary-man family is partly that the husband is beginning to offer assistance in the home and, more

important, that the wife no longer helps the husband with his work. In the farm family, in the small shopkeeper family, and sometimes even in the independent professional and the successful business family, the wife is expected to work alongside the husband and give him assistance in earning the family livelihood. She participates in his sphere even if he does not participate in hers. She shares his work load, and in this way is subjected to his authority. In the salaried family, the husband has exclusive domain over his sphere and the wife has almost exclusive domain over her sphere. In some ways, the division of labor is more symmetrical and complete in "modern" than in most other families.

Although, in comparison to other families, salaried families are in the forefront of breaking down the pattern of the husband abstaining from household work, the amount of change has been infinitesimal. Some "modern" Mamachi husbands occasionally look after the children or put up their own bedding, and a few have swept the yard, run the electric sweeper, or run a few errands, but very few have ever assisted their wives in dusting, cleaning, preparing food, setting or clearing the table, or doing the dishes; and it is unthinkable for a husband to assist in serving guests. Many husbands are still unable to prepare their own meals in the wives' absence, and a few will still go without tea if their wives are away.

The wife even does the house repairs. If necessary, she takes care of the coal or charcoal. She does the yardwork. Usually she buys and cares for the husband's clothes, and some husbands are unable to locate their own clothes if they are not laid out for them by the wives.

Considering that most couples strongly believe in the equality of the sexes, that many young husbands resolve at the time of marriage to help their wives, that even the Crown Prince has set the example by assisting his wife with washing the dishes, and that husbands spend many evenings at home, it is surprising not only that the division of labor has remained so strong, but that wives have not wanted their husbands to help more in the home.
^[1]

[1] In a national
Mainichi
poll of the "Wife's Wishes of the Year" in 1953, in answer to the question, "What do you desire most of your husband?" wives gave the follow-ing answers: increase of income 20 percent, abstinence from excessive drinking and smoking 15 percent, repair of house 13 percent, keeping regular time 12 percent, co-operation with stability of living 7 percent, giving up too lavish spending of money 5 percent, saving money 3 percent, and other 7 percent. Takashi Koyama,
The Changing Social Position of Women in Japan,
UNESCO, 1961, p. 63. The desire for a man to help in housework is notable by its absence.

In part, the explanation lies in the forces of tradition.
^[2]
While in principle, Mamachi couples want to be "modern" and not "traditional," attitudes associated with the division of labor have not entirely disappeared. Husbands often understate the extent to which they help their wives in order to avoid being teased by their friends, and some are angered or embarrassed when accused of doing housework. It is still a bit unseemly for a man to be caught helping his wife, and many wives are equally afraid of being thought incompetent for needing help.

A few wives feel burdened because they must work so hard in the home, but most take it for granted that husbands, like children, cannot look after their own possessions or prepare their own food. Almost every household has at least one story of a time when the husband tried to do something for himself such as prepare a meal or find his clothes, only to make a bungling mess which the wife had to resolve. Most wives genuinely sympathize with a man who is left alone at home for a day or two while she is away visiting relatives.

However, the persistence of a strict division of labor cannot be explained entirely as a result of "traditional" attitudes, because older couples, who would presumably be more influenced by tradition, often share household tasks to a greater extent than younger couples. Even a generation ago, some elderly men helped their wives, and now, because the division of labor is not considered sacred, adjustments can occur on the basis of convenience. One American study found that an important determinant of division of labor in the United States was simply convenience, based on the relative amount of time the husband and wife were home.
^[3]
In part these same ecological forces of time and space would seem to

[2] In a national sample in 1951, 31 percent of Japanese men and 34 percent of women approve of a man assisting in kitchenwork; 42 percent of men and 46 percent of women disapprove. The remainder gave no response or said it depended on the situation. Koyama,
op. cit.,
p. 63.

[3] Robert O. Blood, and Donald M. Wolfe,
Husbands and Wives,
Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1960.

account for some of the variation in the division of labor among Mamachi families; and because the over-all pattern in Mamachi is that the wife spends so much more time at home than the husband, the wife accepts the predominant burden of tasks in the home.