Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (29 page)

In part, the persistence of the division of labor is a method of keeping the husband-wife equilibrium. Even the wife who expresses the wish that her husband help around the home becomes upset when he follows her wish. As he begins to work, he often makes suggestions about how things should be done, and even if he does not, the wife feels uncomfortable because she knows her husband will be more observant and perhaps more critical of her management. Because the husband does not help much anyway, wives often consider it simpler to do a little more work and avoid the husband's interference.

While the husband and wife cannot usually consciously verbalize the reasons for their feeling of discomfort, it appears that the wife is concerned about her autonomy and that without directly discussing it, her cues of discomfort are sufficient to preserve her autonomy and, hence, the more strict division of labor.

To the extent that the division of labor is changing at all, perhaps the sharpest inroads are made when the wife is sick or away. In the stem family system, if the wife became sick, another woman was often available in the household, and if not, a female relative or friend would be called in to substitute. With the urban nuclear family relatively isolated from relatives, such substitutes are often not available. At the same time the modern salary man's wife now has occasional outside activities such as PTA meetings or, on rare occasions, trips to friends or relatives which take her from the household. If there is an elder daughter in the family not busy studying for examinations, she can help out, and with the "instant" food boom many boys are willing to try their hand in the kitchen. If the mother is sick or absent for an extended period, a female relative may still be called in. But frequently the husband acts as substitute for his wife. Once he makes the break and does the housework in his wife's absence, he becomes more eligible for co-operating with his wife after she returns to assume her old position.

As long as the mother is well, however, no one really substitutes for her and no one is delegated any major responsibility for the

housework. Even a grandmother living in the home may not baby-sit for an infant when the mother goes out; the mother takes the infant with her. Boys frequently look after their own belongings, and sometimes help with home repairs or gardening, but they rarely help with cleaning and almost never in the kitchen. A girl in senior high school can typically cook a few dishes, but is unprepared to take charge of preparing a whole meal, using all electrical equipment, or taking full responsibility for supervising younger children in the mother's absence. Girls are thought to mature slowly and since they are busy with school work, the mother is slow to delegate responsibility.

Nor is the mother enthusiastic about passing on responsibilities to part-time maids or baby sitters. A home is defined as too unique and too personal to hire out part of the mother's work. Some families are willing to hire a full-time live-in maid who becomes, in effect, a member of the family, but even then she assists and does not replace the mother. The vast majority are not even interested in hiring a stranger for a few hours a week. The gap between family member and stranger is too great to be bridged by mere contractual arrangements. A mother's relationship with the children is considered so special that even other members of the family are rarely left to care for children. The mother is irreplaceable, her major responsibilities indivisible, and her daily schedule inflexible.

Because housework is so exclusively in the hands of the wife, she does not have to co-ordinate plans with others. She is free to plan her own schedule. Even if she has no schedule, she has regular daily activities like getting the family fed, cleaning the house, shopping, greeting her children when they come home, or serving her husband after his arrival in the evening. Most Mamachi housewives have sufficient time to perform their work without rushing, and because they usually have no special place to go if they work faster, they generally think of housework as an ongoing activity rather than something to be organized rationally and attacked with efficiency.

As in earlier times, one day's activities are hardly distinguished from another's. The one exception is Sunday and holidays when

the children and husband are free to join in family recreation, shopping, or relaxation.
^[4]
Most Mamachi wives perform all household tasks daily, including washing clothes, shopping for groceries, mopping and sweeping the floors. The ice box is sufficiently small, the floor where one sits sufficiently dusty, and laundry sufficiently tedious that the Mamachi wife finds it advisable to do the work daily. Only if she plans sewing, an outing, or some special activity will she skimp on other work. To give an idea of the daily activities we may take a fairly typical day of a Mrs. T:
^[5]

She rises at 6 A.M., a full half-hour before anyone else stirs, and opens the wooden storm doors so the house becomes light and airy. She lights the fire for cooking, and since it is winter, she lights the charcoal for the
kotatsu
. After preparing the food, she wakes up the rest of the family. Her husband eats before the children, and she eats part of her breakfast with the others while preparing their lunch. While the husband and older children are dressing, she frantically rushes to find her husband's lost sock and to prepare their shoes and outer garments at the front doorway. She helps them in their coats and sees them off. The older children will have put their own bedding into the closets, but she puts her husband's and small children's away.

After both older children are off to school, she straps her one-year-old on her back and begins cleaning up the dishes. She then washes out

[4] See David W. Plath, "Land of the Rising Sunday,"
Japan Quarterly,
1960, 7:357–361.

[5] A larger national sampling on the housewife's daily schedule in early 1959 shows the favorable position of the wife of the salary man in having free time to devote to herself and her family.

From
Fujin no Jiyuu Jikan ni Kansuru Ishiki: Choosa
(A Study of Opinions on Women's Free Time), Roodooshoo Fujinshoonen Kyoku, No. 28, 1959, p. 43.

the daily items of laundry and rushes to hang them out on the bamboo poles for fear the clouds might turn into rain. She even takes a few items from the closet to hang outside to prevent them from getting moldy, but she leaves the heavy quilts for a sunnier day. Although it is cool she opens the sliding glass doors to air out the house and begins her cleaning. By now her baby has fallen to sleep and she is pleased to relieve her back by laying him down for his morning nap. She fluffs the dust off the windows and sliding panels, sweeps the tatami mats and the wooden floor, gets down on hands and knees to pursue every speck of dust with concerted determination, and sweeps the path outside the house leaving fresh broom marks in the dust.

By the time she finishes her cleaning, the errand boys from the canned-goods shop and the fish store, along with the errand girl from the fruit and vegetable store will have taken her orders and delivered their goods, the milk man will have brought the half pint of milk for the morning, the ice man will have brought ice for the small ice box, and she will have turned away the errand boy from the butcher shop explaining that she didn't need anything. She catches a brief glimpse of the morning paper which the husband read so leisurely at breakfast, and by the time the baby wakes up she has only a few minutes to play with him before going down the street, baby on back, for two or three items at shops which do not send errand boys. While shopping she stops to chat with a few neighbor ladies and hear the morning gossip.

She returns home and prepares a small lunch for herself and the baby and, after cleaning up the dishes, rests and plays with the baby a few minutes while awaiting the return of the older children. She greets the youngest at the door, but as she is busy with the baby, she responds to her older child's announcement of his arrival by yelling her greeting from the kitchen. Both older children join the mother sitting around the
kotatsu
to relate their school exploits for the day, a conversation that is frequently interrupted by the baby who has awakened from his afternoon nap. By the time the older children are through with their snack and a half hour of studying they are off to play, but only after the mother extracts a solemn promise that they will complete their homework immediately after supper. She digs a few weeds from the garden, brings in some flowers and puts them in a vase, sews a few rags into a dish rag, but postpones the other jobs like sewing her daughter's skirt, pickling radishes, pasting paper on the torn spots in the sliding panel, and running a few errands.

Her afternoon half pint of milk is delivered, but she must go out for the rest of the shopping herself. About five o'clock she rushes out, baby

on back and basket under arm, to do her evening shopping for bread, crackers, seaweed, bean curd, and spices, but she resists the temptation to talk with her friends in order to get back and prepare supper before the children start nagging. By giving the children a few extra snacks she manages to keep them from starting to eat before the father's usual arrival time, but when he is late, she allows the children to eat first. While waiting for the father, she fills the bathtub and lights the gas fire to heat the water. Since the food requires no heating, she serves her husband his food as soon as he arrives and sits down to chat with the children. She eats with the father and chats with him as the children resume their studying, occasionally answering some questions which the children bring while the husband catches a few glances at the evening paper.

She interrupts washing the dishes to turn off the gas under the bath and give the bath water a few quick stirs. She announces that the bath water is ready, and the children, who by this time have completed their homework and are sitting talking with the father, in turn take their baths. After finishing the dishes, cleaning the table, and sweeping the floor, she gets out the bedding and lies down a few minutes alongside the children to wish them a good night. While the husband is reading the evening paper, playing with the baby, taking his bath, and watching TV, she lays out the children's clothes for the next day, shines the shoes, closes the wooden doors, puts the baby to bed, and takes her own bath. Unlike her country cousin who must stay up a half hour or so after everyone else retires in order to complete her work, the modern wife of the salary man retires with her husband.

The daily schedule is more demanding in the winter because of the problem of getting the fires going. Otherwise, except for the extra work at times of examination, the annual New Year's cleaning, the display and storage of various dolls for the different festivals, the more frequent airing of clothing and bedding in the damp season, and the assistance she gets from her daughters during vacation, her schedule is much the same in one season as the next.

A wife with small children usually has no time to watch TV or read magazines or books that are not connected with the children's schoolwork. Once all the children are in school, however, her work is sharply reduced, and though she then spends more time visiting with neighbors, reading, attending PTA meetings, and pursuing the housewifely arts, she often finds it difficult to adjust to the sudden increase of free time.

When Americans hear about the daily life of the Japanese woman, centered so completely on the home, they are inclined to assume that the Japanese wife is discontented with her restricted life. This may accurately reflect the attitude of middle-class American women, who are "cooped up in the home," but not that of Mamachi women. Few Mamachi women are aware of any conflict between home and work or between home and personal enjoyment. The Mamachi wife is pleased that in comparison with poorer families she is able to devote herself to her home and family. She does not aspire to escape the home but to obtain a better and fuller life within the home, and the women she hopes to emulate are those who can enjoy and ably manage their activities in the home.
^[6]

A small percentage of Japanese women are now being trained in specialties which they hope to continue after marriage, but most Mamachi wives do not consider it possible or even desirable to find outside work after marriage. The number of girls attending college is relatively small
^[7]
and high-school and college education of women is primarily focused on training which would not be useful for a vocation. Even those who attend college frequently attend private junior colleges for girls only, and even those who attend more famous universities often major in household management. In contrast to American women who feel frustrated in not being able to continue activities for which they were prepared in college, the young Japanese wife does not have to experience a discontinuity between a