(Family) : The Discourse Le in Cultural Nationalism: A

JapaneseSociety
Japanese Society Cultural

of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
The Discourseof le (Family)

in Japan's CulturalIdentityand Nationalism:
A Critique
Takami Kuwayama
This paper has three major objectives: (1)to givean overview the vast literature
of in English
on the traditionalJapanese family called the bìe;" (2)to examine the relationship between the
contributions of both Japanese and non-Japanese scholars to that literature;and (3) to
demonstratethe significanee of the ie,both past and present, forthe Japanese,
A carefu1 review of existing studies shows that the ie has often been represented as a
symbol of Japan. This representation is inseparable from that of familM but it has
transcended the original meaning to produce a broad ''discursive"
sphere in which diffbrent

aspects of Japan, such
politics, as
and psychologyl are discussedin the same
economM rubric,
Regarding the ie as discourse of Japanese cu]ture, namelM
a as
"a
group of statements which
provide a language fbr talking about - i.e.,a way of representing - a particular kind of
knowledge about a topic'`(Hall 1992: 291),the paper explores how scholars, both insideand
outside Japan, have conceptualized the ie.iIt also demonstratesthat the ieliesat the heartof
Japan'scultural identityand nationalism,
i
A major problem in contemporary anthropo]egy is the ]ack of dialogue between i'native''
anthropologists and
Western anthropologist･s (Kuwayama 1997; 2000).[ibhelp overceme this problem, thc paper gives equal weight
to the literaturein English and that in Japanese.It is hoped that non-Japanese readers will benefit from the
author's reference to Japanese-language works, both classjcal and contemporary, which seldom reach the
international community of scholars because of the language barrier.It is also hoped that Japanese readers
will become aware of the va]uable eontributions Tnade by their tbreign col]eagues toward a better
understanding of their own society,
NII-Electronic Library Service

JapaneseSociety
Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology
ofCultural Anthropology
4 TAKA"tt KwwimaMA
The fe Model ofJapanese Society
In Japanese studies abroad, especially in the Anglophone world, there is a tradition of

research into what may be called the `'ie
modeli' of Japanese society, This model says that the
ie is the basicunit in Japanese society that it transcends the individuals who
and compose it.
The ie model also holds that other large groups, such as the d62oku, the companM and even
the entire nation, are structural extensions the ie. Examples include cDncepts
of like
"corporate
familism"and society."
''ie
When applied in the analysis of personalitM the model
emphasizes the group orientation of the Japanese, as contrasted with western individualism,
underscoring the submission the individual to the family
of will and the resultant
suppression of personal desiresfor the sake of the ie,In this regard, the ie model is at the
center of the
"group
medel" in Japanese studies (Befu1980).
Below,I will examine how ithas been fbrmulatedand utilized by scho!ars, dividing their
arguments into two major How the ie is

eategories: village studies and company studies.
appropriated in the current controversy bessei(two-surname family)will also be

over fZZfte
discussed to illustrate the eentral place of the ie in the discourse of Japanese culture, It
should be mentioned at the eutset that the fo11owingis not intendedto be a comprehensive
review; rather, it highlightsworks that are of classic importance or those that represent
prevailing trends of thought at a parrticulartime. Readers
interested in a detailedanalysis
should refer to Kuwayama (1996).
The Ie in VillageStudies
John Embree was probablythe firstAmerican anthropologist to note the importaneeof the ie
in the social structure of rural Japan, In his classic book Suye Mura (1939), Embree wrote:
The primary social unit in burahu lifeisthe household. Thishouseholdincludes

[village]
the small familM perhaps a retired grandfather or grandmother, and one or two servants
to help in the household and farm labor,The size of a burahu is reckoned by the number
of households,not by the number of peeple, and participation in buraku co-operative
affairs such as funerals or bridge-building is per household, not per capita. People and
things of the house are referred to as uchi no (ofthe house), as, forinstance, mother of
the house, bicycle of the house,cow of the house. (Embree1939:79)
The ''household"
mentioned above refers to the ie. The ie has often been translated into
English as either
"family"
or
"household"'
without a clear conceptual Since this
distinction,
distinction is itself a point of dispute, I have decided to respect individualauthors'
terminologies, although the Japanese original
''ie"
isused throughout whenever possible."

JapaneseSociety
The Discourseof le (Family)

in Japan"sCultural
Identityand Nationalism:A Critique 5
Suye Mura's influenceon the subsequent research into Japan was enormous. Not only
was it the only ethnography in English on ]ifein Japan beforeWorld War II,but it was also
written within the framework of structural functionalism,one of the dominant anthro-
pological paradigms at that time. UnderstandablM Embree's view was fbllowed by the next
generation of scholars who visited Japan after the war.

For example, in 7dhashima (1954),a study of a fishingvillage in Okayama, Edward
Norbeck fo11owedEmbree closely when he stated:
The basic social unit on [[bkashimaisthe household...

In all buraku affhirs the heusehold
is the primary impertance, and representation
unit of at most non-social gatherings isby
one person only from each household, whether the household is comprised of one person
or twelve persons... There is a strong feelingof unity among members of a household, A
grandfather is not grandfather,`'but ojiisan,

'bmy 'ithe
uehi no grandfather of our
(Norbeck1954:48-49)
house(hold).''
In Village Jdpan (1959),

a comprehensive study of a farming village in Okayama, located
near Takashima, Richard BeardsleMJohn Hall, and Robert Ward repeatedly argued that the
ie,not the individual,is givenprimary consideration in community life(BeardsleMHall,and
Ward 1959: 351-352); that the individual is considered only apart of the ie (1959: 216-220);
that
iesolidarity demands loyalty, selfsacrifice, and suppression of individuality on the part ef its
members (1959:7);that there is littleroom forrugged individualism in rural Japan (1959: 71-
72);and that honor is achieved in the name of the ie,not in that of the individual(1959:480).
BeardsleM Hall,and Ward explicitly related the Japanese sense of self to the ie when they
commented:
The household is the fundamental social unit of the community... Seldom does any man,
woman, er child think of himself or anotherperson apart from his role as a member of his
house (ie). The ielooms above the individual
identitiesof itsmembers to a degreethat is
hard to overstress. (1959:216)
Simi]ar views werepresented by scholars who studied urban Japan. Among them was
British sociologist Ronald Dore, the author of another classic CityLiflein (1958).
Dore
cJttpan
L'
le literallymeans a In Iwanami'sDictionary
''house,''
of Kbj'ien(5thed., 1998),three major definitionsof ie
are given:
Cl)a structure tbr residence; (2)a colleetivity of people livingin the same house;and (3)a kinship
group with common ancestors or preperty handed down from generation to generatien. A few words with
similar meaning oxist, namelM ka2oku, katei, and setai, which are ordinarily translated into English as
T'family,'' ''home,''
and
''household,''
respectively. They are, however,defineddifftirently in difTbrentfieldsof
studM and within the same field,different scholars use them differently.The ie is analegous to another
concept, uehi., which literallymeans but which can also refer to a
''inside,ì
depending on the eontext,
'ihouse,"
as Embree's passage shows jn the text, Uchi may also be used as a first-personproneun. For a perceptive
analysis of uchi, see Bachnik (1994).

JapaneseSociety
6 TAKAMI KuwAmnIA
maintained that under the traditional Japanese familysystem, the individual''is always a
representative of his family"(Dore1958: 100) and that "the

family is greater
an entity of
irnportancethan the individuals who temporarily compose it''(1958:

103).Although the Civil
Code of 1898,which institutedthe ie system, was Japan'sdefeatin World War II,
revised after
the impact of the ie system continued to be feltin the district

of [[bkyo studied by Dore. As he
remarked,
"despite
the diminished importance of the transcendental family the identityof the
individual
can be deeplymerged in the household to which he belongs"(1958:
still 155).
In Nlew Middle Class (1963),
tJttpants Ezra Vbgel examined the lifestyle of sarart man
(salariedmen), an urban middle-class that grew rapidly from the mid-1950s onward. He noted
of the ieideal,"but nevertheless that of the iestill
t'decline "the
the general contended model
has an important impact on familybehaviort' in Japan (Vbgel1963: 165).Vbgel describedthis

model as fo11ows:
At the heart of the system was the ie,the single unbroken family line,including both
living and dead, and the concept of filial
piety,The basicgoal of iemembers was to care
properly fordepartedancestors and prosperity of their ie...

to preserve the continuity and
Family members sacrificed personal pleasures and wants fbr the ie, not only to gain
respect or rewards in this life,but to attain immortalitMfbr the idea of afterlife was
eontingent on the continuation of the ie,(1963:165)
It is not mere coincidence that Vbge] wrote

by referring to Nobushige these words
Hozumi's book Ancestor-illorship and Law, published in Englishin 1912. From the
eJdpanese
Melji restoration (1868)onwards, the ie had occupied a central place in the Japanese
discourseof cultural identity and nationalism. Represented by the miup6ten rons6 (the
controversy over the CivilCode of 1898),i' this discourse probably influenced foreignscholars
only indirectlyand in limited ways, but itis unlikely that they were completely unaflbcted.
Put another waM there was a pessible convergence between Japanese and foreign scholars in
the forrnation of the ie model. [[b demonstrate this, I will discussbelew representative
Japanese views of the ie, focusing on those put forward in the firsthalf of the twentieth
century.
Kunio Yanagita, known folklorestudies, regarded

as the founder of Japanese the ie as
the spiritual fbundatienof Japan. In Jidai to Nbsei (Time and Agricultural Policy, 1910),
Yhnagita lamented the diluted sense of familycontinuity among urban people. In the cities,
he wrote, people put their individual interestsbeforethe long-term interestsof their families,
He called this behavioriegoroshi, literally of the ie," Yanagita further
"killing "domicide,"
or
argued that a person`s awareness of the relationship with his ancestors makes him recognize
the importance of the ie,which Yanagitaregarded as a linkbetween the individual and the
This refers to the controversy that occurred after the premulgation in ]890 ef the civil code draftedby
Gustave E. Boissonade. For a more detailedexplanatiun, see the next scction.

JapaneseSociety
The Discourseef le (Family)in Japanis Cultural ldentity and Nationalism:A Critique 7
state. As he remarked, awareness

"The
that one's ancestors have respected and served the
Imperial House forgenerations is the foundationof Japanese nationalism and loyalty to the
master. Without the ie,it would be difficult to explain to oneself why one should be Japanese''
(Yanagita1997 [1910] : 268).4This statement was fo11owed immediately by his criticism of
western individualism.
[rbizo[Ibda,the founder of the sociology of the familyin Japan, noted the deep respect
there forthe family genealogy. He contended that this respect springs from the "group
spirit''
among familymembers, which he described as kaxoku seishin ('tfamily Once family spirit").
spirit is generated, [[bda said, it will be perpetuated, despite the constant change in family
rnernbership, justas the state has a perpetual existence. According to him, the trans-
generational nature of the Japanese family makes itdifft}rentfrom the coajugal familyin the
West. [Ibdawas, however,more empirical than Yanagita, He showed, for example, that the
rural familieshe surveyed in the 1920s usually disappeared after four or five generations.
Poverty was mainly responsible for this relatively short life. [[bda therefbre eontended that,
with the exception of the nobility and the wealthy, the Japanese do not have an adequate
material basis on which to developa strong family identity([[bda 1926:247-277).
Eitaro Suzuki,a rpajor figure in Japanese rural sociology, drew on PitirimSorokin and
attempted to analyze the ie as the Japanese fbrm of fami]y,"He was especially ''rural
impressed with Sorokin'sconcept of in which family collectivism''

"familism,"
was
"rural
contrasted with economic individualism." Since Suzuki (1940:116-138)referred

"urban
to
Sorokinin detail,and since Sorokin'sdescription of the characteristics" of the
i'psycho-social
rural familyis strikingly similar to the Japanese personality as described in the ie model, I
will quote him at length.
[Therural family's]greater integrationmeans agreater nzutual fttsion

of the personalities
of itsindividualmembers into one collective fomilypersonality,Itsmembers feel,think,
act, and behave less individualistically
and more collectivistically than those of the urban
family The family "we''
occupies in their individual minds agreater place, and the
individual "I"
is correspondingly less developed,than in the less integrated urban
[T]herural
family,,, familM in order to satisfy itsneeds and to survive, had to become
more disciplined,more integrated, more orderlM have had to show
and its members a
deeper readiness to sacrifice and to perform their duties. (Sorokin,Zimmerman, and
Galpin 1965 [1931]

:13-15, emphasis in original)
Another important aspect of rural society is,aceording to Sorokin,the "cult

of the familyand
its ancestors'' -
parallel to Yanagita'sconcerning
a view Japan's national identity.Suzuki,
however, did not fbllow Sorokin uncriticallM His originality lay in his conception of the ie as
(1940:148),which is best understood
''seishin"
as an
"ethos.''
The German word
''Geist"
(asin
'i All ofthe
quotatiens from Japanese works that appear in this paper have been translated by the auther,

JapaneseSociety
8 TAKAMI KuwAYAMA
Vblksgeist) is probably closer to Suzuki'sseishin than the English word

"spirit.''
Central to
this conception is the view that the ie has
"its
own will and norms that dictatethe unique
world of collective familymembers''

experience (1940:238),S
arnong
In one of his few publications in English, Kizaemon Ariga,bestknown forhis study of the
ctb2oku Like his predecessors,
group in Iwate, identifiedthe ie as the Japanese fbrm of family.ti
Ariga emphasized the ie as a collectivity that transcends individuals who compose it at a
particulartime. As he stated:
In the Japanese family as a peculiarlyidealized

institution,each member finds his raison
d'etreby contributing toward the maintenance and continuance of the family.. In any
givenperiod of history all family members have been expected to contribute to the
perpetuation of the familM which is held to be the highest duty of the member, (Ariga
1954:362)
Ariga carefu11y noted that had occurred in the Japanese family since the
the various changes
end of World War II,but these changes not gone so faras to abolish the familysystem
"have
itself,in which personal freedom has littleroorn't (1954:368).He concluded his brie£ but
influential article by observing that the small-scale farm management in rural Japan
persistenceof the familyas an institution"(1954:

to the 368),
"stubborn
contributed
Chie Nakane's view of the iewas parallel to Ariga'sin many respects, She strengthened
her predecessors' ideasof the ie when she remarked as fbllows at the beginning of her book
Kinsh(pand Economic Organizationin Rural Jqpan (1967):
CONCEPT OF IE (HOUSHOLD) The primary unit of social organization in Japan is the

household.In an agrarian community a household has panicularly important functions
as a distinctbody for economic management... [I]ts sociological importance is such that a
household of any kind of composition is regarded as one distinctunit in societM
represented externally by itshead, and internally organized under his leadership. Once
established, a household is expected to remain intact in spite of changes ef generations,
In a villagecommunity it is the household,not familyor kin group, thatforms the basis
In the preface to Su),e Mura, Embree (1939:xxii) expressed

fi his ''deep appreciation'' to Yanagita and thanked
Suzuki for having supplied
"much
valuable information and advice,'' He also cDnsulted Hozumi Nobushige"s
Ancestor- librshipand Latv (1912)(Embree 1939:81).
cJdpanese
"
Ariga's article appeared as part of the issue dealingwith the in IS countries ''family''
oT regions in the
jeurnalMarriage and fumily Living, His article begins as fbllows: family in Japan is
''The
called
"ie'
in
Japanese." This statement shows that Ariga defined the ie as the Japanese form of family. However, he was
not consistent on this point throughout his career, For example, in the preface to Nihon no KLzzoleu(The
he did previouslM that the ie may be understood
''the
as
Japanese Family,1965), Ariga maintained, as
Japanese family.'' Later, he changed hisposition, saying that this definition was misleading and blurred the
distinctionbetween
''ie"
and Thus, in the 1972 edition of the book,he changed
''ka2oku.''
the boek title to Ie and
wrote,
'iThe
ie is a custom peculiar to Japan, and it is diffbrentft'ornthe family in the cross-cultural sense of
the word."

JapaneseSociety
of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
The Diseourse ofIe (Family)in Japan`s CuLtural Identity and Nationalism/ A Critique 9
ofsocial organization. (Nakane 1967a: 1 )
Unlike Ariga, Nakane c]early distinguishedbetween and but both ''family" "household,`'
scholars discussedthe same institution, the ie,This difference points to the problems involved
in translation,but not to a conceptual disagreement.
At the risk of comp}icating the argument, some of the salient structural features of the ie
should be pointed out here, There is generalagreement that the structural core of the ie is
the line of succession between the group's head and his successor. The ie continuity
emphasized in the foregoingderivesfrom this agreement, As in any other countrM succession
in Japanis ie contains two diffbrent elements, accession to the headship and inheritance of
group property The ie headship is ordinarily passed on from fatherto eldest son by the rule
of primogeniture, but many alternative strategies exist to maintain the group. For example,
when there isno biologicalson to succeed within the ie,a son may be adopted from outside.
What distinguishes the iefrom other farnilysystems
in Asia is that there is no strong feeling
that the adopted son must be related to the head by blood,This correlates with the absence of
a clear-cut distinction between kin and non-kin in traditionalJapanese society It is also
reinfbrced by the relatively looseuse of kinshipterrns in addressing nen-kin CBefu 1971: 62-
63),Indeed,Yanagitashowed that the Japanese words for parents and children, aya and ho,
originally referred to people of
"parent-statusi'
and of
i'child-status,"
respectivelM without
regard to the biologica] relationships involved.

As fbrinheritance,
ie property is passed on to
one child, usually the eldest son, but in some regions, it is inherited by the eldest daughter if
she is a firstchild or by the youngest son. Non-inheriting children receive economic support
from their parents when they marry out. In the case of a merchant ie,which incorporates
unrelated employees as its members,
branch shops are often set up for them, and they
maintain fictive kinship relationships with the ie head and participate in collective, ritual
activities, These characteristics suggest that the ie is a corporate group, rather than a kinship
group, cornparable to an economic organization. As the next seetion shows, the analogy
between the ie and the Japanese company has emerged from this relatively weak kinship
relationship and, conversely, from the functionof the ie as a managing body.i
At this point, and in connection with the above, I should mention a complication in the
Japanese discourseof ie that became evident before and after World War II,For more than
halfa centurM covering the years from the mid-Melji period to Japan's defeat in 1945, the
notion of ie was pivotal to Japan'skohutai(national polity).S The entire Japanese nation was
likenedto a huge familM in which all Japanese subjects were considered sekishi (babes) of the
i
The ie has been likened to largergroups, even to the entire Japanese nation, as will be discussed below.
Whether the ie is a kinship group or a pseudo-kinship group eriented toward the satisfaction of itsmembers'
economic needs, has long been debated by anthropelogists of Japan. It should be remembered, however, that
the ie analogy Ci.e.,the likeningof the ie to other groups) is effective because the relatively weak blood
relationship among ie rnernbers has made the ie a non-exclusive organization open to the larger,outside world.
I owe this observation to Mutsuhiko Shima.

JapaneseSociety
io TAKA"(IKuWAYAMA
Emperor andtaught to serve the Imperial House, if necessary

were through the ultimate
sacrifice of their own lives.
In this politiealideology known as kazohu kohka (familystate), h6
(filial piety) and cha (loyalty to the master) were considered identical.[Vheideologyof the
familystate was givenits quintessential expression in Kbhutai no Hongi (Fundamentals ef
Our National Polity),published by the Ministry of Education in 1937, which

"Our
stated,
country is a great family nation, and the Imperial Household is the head family of the
subjects and the nucleus of national ]ife"(Monbush6 Ky6gakukyoku 1978; Tsunoda, Theodore
de BarM and Keene 1964: 282).
Given this historM it is understandable that befbre the end of World War II, many
Japanese intellectuals, including Ylanagita, lauded Japan's junpdebi2oku (humane customs
and beautifu1 habits)centered around the ie,whereas there was an almost sudden reversal of
attitudes after the war. This took place among so-called postwar intellectuals"
"progressive,
and represented an outburst of repressed feelings.Among them was the sociologist Tadashi
Fukutake. Underlyingmany of his books was a negative outlook on his defeatednation. He
argued that the idea of things for the sake of the family"had been the compelling
`'doing
norm of family lifein prewar Japan. Holding the ie system responsible for Japan's social
inequalitM sexual discrimination, status distinctionsbetween honhe (main family)and bunke
(branchfami}y),and so forth,Fukutake observed, [T]he iesystem was directlyrelated to the
''
bankruptcy of the irnperialfamily state - itselfan extension of the ie.Allin all, the defectsof
the system balanceditsvirtues" (Fukutake 1982: 28).
[[Xvoof the most influential intellectualsin postwar Japan, Masao Maruyama and
TakeyoshiKawashima, made simi}ar observations, In a lecturedeliveredat the Universityof

Tbkyo in 1947, Maruyama stated that the on the family system"
"insistence "distinctive
was a
characteristic of Japanese fascistideology'' (Maruyarna1963: 37). In 1951, he further

contended, by destroyingthe tenacious family structure in Japanese society and its
"Only
ideologM the very place where the old natiopalism ferments,can Japan democratizesociety
from the base upi' (1963:152). Kawashima's view was more radical. In Nihon Shakai no
Kd2oku-tehiKbsei(The Familial Structure of Japanese SocietM1948),he declared:
S
We must remember, however, that the pro-ie discoursedid net go unchallenged. For example, many
novelists in modern Japan, especially those fTom shizen shirgi (naturalism), attacked the constraints imposed
on ie members. The genre called "shi-shasetsu''
(the 'Ì-novel")
emerged from this tradition.Also,during the
Taisho period C1912-1926), characterized by a liberal and democratic intellectualclimate, there was a
considerable debate about whether familism'' should

''ie
be replaced by individualism''whieh,
''coniugal
according to some critics, was better suited to the urban, industriallifestyle (Morioka1993).In this context,
Marxist Jun Tbsaka's critique of 'iie
analogy'' is valuable. Regarding familism as a nationalistic reaction
against westem individualism,7[bsaka maintained that familism is a sort offLthko shug"archaism). According
to him, its primordial appearance disguises the recent origin of this ideology3 which he elaimed emerged on]y
when Japan'scapitalism had reached a relatively high stage ef development.Tbsaka argued that dent6 shugi
(traditionalism) will eventually destroy the traditionon which itstands {[[bsaka L977 [19351: 172-185).We may
say that Tbsaka adumbrated the currently fashionable theery that the ie is a tradition i'invented'' in medern
times (e.g., Ueno 1996).UnfortunatelMhis critique has almost fa11en into oblivion, despitehis reputation as
the forerunner of contemporary Cultural Studies.

JapaneseSociety
The Disceurseof le(Family)in Japan's Cultural ldentity ancl Nationalism/ A Critique li
Japanese society consists of familiesand family-like bonds. The dominant familial

principlein Japan conflicts with democracy.Because they are antithetical
the principle of
to each other, we will never be able to democratizeour family life and social lifeby
mixing the two, The familial principle of lifetenaciously prevents the democratization of
our social life, No democracy would ever be possible without abolishing it...A democratic
revolution would definitelyrequire a denialof our mentality and an internal revolution of
the mind. Our probiems with the familysystem will only be solved when the pre-modern
familyconscieusness isdenied,(Kawashima 1948:22-25)
This complication in the discourseof ie,triggered by Japan's unconditional surrender in

World War II,is virtually absent in the voluminous English-languageliterature
on the same
subject,
Since the 1970s, when the impact of urbanization and industrializationbegan to be felt
strongly throughout Japan, interest in village studies has diminishedboth among Japanese
and foreignscho]ars. Yet, research has continued
to this daM perhaps more so in the English-
speaking community than in Japan. In the late I970s, forexample, three major re-studies
were published: Ronald Dore's Shinohata (1978),Edward Norbeck'sCountry to City (1978),
and Robert Smith'sKurusu (1978).Change and continuity in the ie and the buraku were
documented vividly in these books.In what fo11ows,I will brieflydiscussa few more recent
studies.
Joy Hendry discussedthe ie in most detailin her monograph Marriage in Changiug

eJdpan (1981), a study ef a rural community in Fukuoka. Her central thesis isthat marriage
in rural Japan is not simply a contract between individuals;rather, it establishes the new
couple as members of their household, whether that of honke, or a newly created bunke,that
eonstitutes part the
ef wider social network in the community. Relationscreated by marriage
are, therefore, not so much between individuals as between households and communities.
Furthermore,in her widely used textbook Understanding Jqpanese Society(2nded., 1995),
Hendry stated, is an essential
"Continuity
feature of the ie...It is the duty of the living

members at any one time to remember their predecessors, and to ensure that the house will
continue after they die'`(1995:24),
Okpyo Moon studied a village called Hanasaku in Gunma. This village was seriously
affected by the declineof agriculture and depopulation. The situation began to change in the
1960s, however,when a ski resort was opened, fo11owedby the opening of many minshuku
(country inns) run by local families. Accordingto Moon, the ideologyof ie continuity helped
shape the newly developedtouristindustry As she remarked, [T]he developmentofa tourist "
industry in Hanasaku has provided those of itsresidents who are faced with a potentia] erisis
in household continuity with a positive adaptive approach with which they can manipulate
the changing economic situation to their advantage. The household
the ie remains the or
basicunit of social, political, and lifein Hanasaku" (Moon 1998: 128).The detailsof
religious
Moon"s research are contained in her ethnography From Padcfy Fieldto Ski Slqpe(1989).

JapaneseSociety
12 TAKAMI KuwmaMA
Brian Moeran reached the opposite conclusion. In his book Lost Innocence(1984),
a study
of a pottery-making village in Oita,Moeran describedthe ie as basicunit of eooperation,

''the
and each individualis firstand foremosta member of his household"(1984:50).He argued,

however, that Japan's technelogicaladvances and economic improvernents since the 1960s had
broughtabout the
i'breakdown
of community individualism" in the
solidarity'' and the "rise
of
village (1984:120).This ebservation is shared with the authors of the three re-studies
mentioned abQve, particularly Smith. Elsewhere, Moeran wrote, of what has been "Much
written concerning the household (ie), extended household (dhaohu)and hamlet (buraleu)
expresses an idealthat may have been true in the past, but isno longerstrictly adhered to in
in Moon 1998: 117),IronicallM by arguing that Japanese society used to be
practice" (quoted
collective, but that it has become more individualistic,Moeran attested to the viability of the
iemodel, in which the two idealsare contrasted,
The le in Company Studies
As Japanese capitalism developed rapidly after the war, and the visibility of Japanese
corporations increasedon the international market, the focus of researeh utilizing the ie
model shifted from rural communities to urban companies. GenerallM scholars have
emphasized the analogy between the ie and the company, regarding the latteras an extension
of the former in two important (1)The employment pattern in the modern

respects: Japanese
company has a close structural and ideologicalrelationship with the traditional ie
management; and (2)The social role played by the ie in pre-rnodern Japan is played by the
company in modern times. Robert Cole explained this analogy in his book Blue tJdpanese
Collar(1971). As he stated:
Using household-kinship forother social relationships

as a model in Japan, we have the
fo11owinganalogy: The head of the householdis the fatherwho corresponds to the head of
the companM the company is the house and the worker is one of the children under the
authority of the parents. In the nationa}ist parallelthe Emperor was the father, the state
the house, and the people were members of the family. In the factorMthe household-
kinship terminologyl as legitimating ideologM reinforces the hierarchieal relationship of
management in a superior and the workers in an inferior $tatus. (Cole1971: 172)
[[bday,when so-ealled
''Japanese-style
management" is beginningto crumble due to the
economic crisis after the collapse of the
"bubble
economy" in the early 1990s, coupled with the
externa} pressures for globalization,statements like the above sound increasingly hollow.
However, at the time when Japan`s corporate culture was praised fbrhaving contributed to
the "economic
rniracle of the twentieth centurMii many scholars argued (assome still do) that
the Japanese company was committed to the entire lives of their employees, not simply to

JapaneseSociety
The Discourse ef fe {Family)in Japan's CulturaiIdentity and Nationalism:A Critique 13
that part related to their work. In other words, the Japanese company has been considered
not so much a group of individuals bound by contractual relationships into a cQrporate
enterprise as an all-embracing organization in which the employees' whole selves, and even
those of their entire families,
are immersed.
Japanese businessmen played a considerable role in spreading the idea of "corporate
familism" to the western For example,

world, in hiswidely read book Made in Jqpan (1988),
AlrioMorita,an internationallyrenowned businessman who, before his death, was chairman
SonM as fbllows in a chapter entitied MANAGEMENT: It'sAll in the "ON
of remarked
Family't:
The most important mission isto developa healthyrelationship

for a Japanese manager
with his employees, to create a familylike feelingwithin the eorporation, a feeling that
employees and managers share the same fate... [T]here has to be mutual respect and a
sense that the company is the propertyof the employees and not ofa few top people. But
those people at the top of the company have a responsibility to leadthat family faithfu11y
and be concerned about the members. We have a policy that wherever we are in the
world we deal with our employees as rnembers of the Sony familM as valued colleagues.
(Morita1988: 144-159)
As Kosaku Ybshino (1992)pointed out, Japanese businessmen were avid readers of books in
the genre called nihonjinron (''theories of Japaneseness"), whieh was very popular frem the
1960sto the 1980s. When foreigners asked about the ofJapan's economic success, they
"secret"
were offered explanations such as the above, of a kind which strengthened the economic
nationalism of postwar Japan. We should note here that the fami]y analogy was used
extensively in these explanations,
In the fieldsof anthropology and sociology, a major focus of research into Japan's
corporate culture has been the place the individual
of in the group. The relationship between
the Japanese company and itsemployees has often been discussed utilizing the ie model.
Thus, studies have emphasized that the collective welfare of a company takes precedence over
the individual interests of its workers, even though this means sacrificing their family
obligations, Ronald Dore'sBritishthctor:y-eldpanese thctor:y(1973)is representative, Central
to his argument is the contrast between western individualismand Japanese collectivism.
Noting the diffusedinvolvement of Japanese workers in their companM Dore contended that
when the workers' personal interests conflicted with those of the companM theywere expected
to sacrifice the former forthe latter, and indeed they did so, Such devotionto the greup could
hardlybe expected of the British.As Dore remarked:
This is notjust a matter demandsof the of the organization. It is partly a reflection of the
fact that for the Japanese concern family"as greup - its
"the
a]1 with a corporate
ancestry, its honour and its property - lessva}ue has been placed in Japan than in

JapaneseSociety
l4 TAKAIMIKUWAYA)tA
England on the actual qualityof personal relations within the family,,,It is not justthat
the Japanese system enhances enterprise consciousness; it a}so - the other side of the
coin - does less to develop individualism. Man-embedded-in-organization has no great
need to make personal moral choices; the organization's norms set guidelines; the
organization's sanctions keep him to the path ofvirtue. (DQre 1990 [l973]: 211-215)"
In the afterword to the 1990 edition of the book, Dore contended that non-western countries
that industrialized laterthan Japan often lacked trained propensdy to invest a lotof 'rthe
one's ego in one's membership in seeondary groups outside the familyand to give priorityto
those groups' goals over personal goals"(1990 [1973]:452-453). Accordingto hirn,this lackhas
contributed to the failureto establish energetic and cooperating
"an
working community'' in
those countries.
Like Dere,Thomas Rohlen argued that in the Japanese bank he studied, called Uedagin,
individual interests were considered secondary to those of the company He went one step
fartherwhen he compared the position of sempai in the bank to that

(predecessers) of family
ancestors. He noted that stories eften appeared in the bank magazine recalling the trialsand
sacrifices of previous generations of workers. These stories served to remind the present
generation of their debt to those who went beforethem. In IibrHarmony and Strength(1974),
Rohlen wrote:
This relatienship, one that stretches over time and interlocksdifferentgenerations, is

fundamental to the bank'ssense of historM institutionalcontinuitM and social morality
Such intergenerational ties are analogous to the traditional ideal conception of the
Japanese household (ie)as a social enterprise existing in time, with each generation
benefitingfrem itsparents and ancestors and in turn having the obligation to return
these benefits and increase them for their own children and their descendants.(Rohlen
1974:48)
It is not difficult
to detecthere the influenceof Ruth Benedict's The Chiysanthemum and the
Sword (1946),in which she discussedthe Japanese concept of on (indebtedness;
obligation),
Rohlen furthermaintained that the Japanese bankts
"organic"
worldview was fundamentally
diffbrentfrom the western "functionalist"
eonception of the world. As he commented,
"Our
'funetionalism'
borrows the image of the machine. This mechanical view of organization
defines relationships as impersonal,Uedagin

essentially
'functionalism'
utilizes the image of
the 'great
family,'thus implying deep personal involvement''
(1974:60),
"
At firstsight, the sacrifice of family interests for the sake of the company appears to c'ontradict the ie
medel, but it does not. If anything, it enhances the model's value in explaining Japanese behavior because
insofar as the self is subordinated to the group to which it belongs, and dedication te causes greater than the
self is praised, sacrificing family interests for thc company has the same logical strueture as sacrificing
personal interestsforthe family,

JapaneseSociety
The Discourseot'Je (Family)in Japan's CulturalIdentityand Nationalism/ ACritique V5
Since the books of both Dore and Rohlen were written in the early 1970s, it may be
thought that their views are outdated todayL Their veices, however, are echoed in recent
research, [[b illustratethis, I will discuss below three major works dealing squarely with
corporate familism.
Dorinne Kondo's postmodern ethnography entitled Crafting Selves(1990)
contains elegant
narratives of the livesof Japanese men and women struggling to maintain the kagor6(family
business).
One such person Kondo described was a high school Masao, an only
student cal]ed
son of the owner of a small shop in downtown [Ibkyo.After narrating his anguish over
whether he should pursue his own career interests or take over his familybusiness, Kondo
said:
The ie is not simply a kinshipunit based on blood relationship, but a corporate group
based on social and economic ties. Thus, the ie,the householdline, and the hagyb, the
familyenterprise, are of critical moral, social, and ernotional importance.They should
ideallybe carried on in perpetuitM so much so that many alternatives exist to ensure that
the household wil] not die out. The responsibility facing young Masao was thus a
daunting one, As tbe only son and the only child, he carried the weight of history on his
shoulders,,, For the parents with a hqgy6 to pass on, subordinating one's individual
desires to that of the household enterprise takes on the character of moral virtue,
Pursuing one's owndisregardingthe duties toward the household smaeks
plans and of
selfish immaturity (Kondo1990i131)
Another persen Kondo described was Mrs, Ybkoyama, an attractive middle-aged woman who,
one can irnagine, could have had her pick of handsome boyfriends, but who married a dull
man to carry on her family business of hairdressing.
Kondo asked, was
''Why
the household
enterprise so important? How could she personal happiness, even for
so calcu]atingly saerifice
the sake of the ie and the business?''

(1990:137),Here isKondo`sanswer to her own questien:
LM]arriage within the ie system

is above all a mechanism forensuring the continuity of
the ie,Again, considerations of the ieshould be given preference over individuals' selfish
desires, and where considerable ieresourees are at stake (inthe form of propertM moneM
"cultural
or capital'') this tendency will likely be intensified, Individualpreferenceneed
not be entirely ignored, but it should be a secondary consideration. The continuity and
prosperity of the ie sheuld be of utmost importance.Someone who can work well in the
family enterprise and who can get along with other family members may be more valued
than a person who pleases the spouse alone. If desire and obligation are in conflict, it is
duty that should precede desire,(1990:132)
CrafringSelves has been widely acelaimed in the United States,and itsimpact has surpassed
the small circle of Japan specialists to reach the anthropological community in general.

JapaneseSociety
of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
16 TAKAMI KUWAYAMA
CuriouslM despitethe innovativewriting style inspired by the

''experimental
moment"
(Marcus and Fischer 1986), Kondo's view ef the ie replicates the traditionalpertrait of the
Japanese that has been circulating since the times of Embree and Benedict.
Mathews Hamabata, in CrestedKimono (1990), studied a ubzohu family remotely re}ated
to Japan's imperial familM which owns a･conglomerate. Like Kondo, he used narrative
techniques to describethe personal livesof the familyin the areas ef succession, authoritM
marriage, and love. Hamabata showed that despite the legaldemise of the ie,itloomed large
in the minds of the peoplehe studied in almost every aspect of dailylife. He emphasized how
individual needs and aspirations were to preserve the honor and wealth
sacrificed of the ie,a
point made The ie was

also by Kondo. thus depicted as a source of both prideand
constraint
among the members of the elite businessfarnily

'relations
Paul Noguchi studied labor-management at the Japanese National Railways
(JNR),the largest state enterprise in Japan beforeit was privatized in l987. In Detayed
Departures,Overdue Arrivals (1990), Noguchi showed that JNR's ideologyof railroad
"one
family'imeant differentthings to differentemployees, depending on their positions in the

Despite the image of solidarity and harmony projected by the
"one
overall organization.
heuse" idiom,JNR was actually conflict-ridden, as the frequent laborstrikes showed. Thus,
Noguchi emphasized the importance of distinguishing the goalsof an organization from the
persenal aims and aspirations of itsemployees. Such internaldifferences

were not examined
carefu11y in
previous studies,
many
The fbre'goingmakes clear that the anthropological and Japanese

sociological study of
business among English-speaking scholars has commonly employed the analogy between the
traditionalie and the contemporary company. What is missing, or at least submerged in the
vast literature,is a clear awareness ofthe - the fact that the iehas often been
of ie'i
''politics
manipulated politically and represented as a national symbol in the atternpt to establish

Japan'scultural distinctiveness.
It is very important te note here two things. First,despitethe popular assumption that
Japanese-style management developedspontaneously from the values of premodern Japan, it
was instituted only around World War I against a politicallycomplex background (Hazama
1989 [1963] )."OCertainly, the prototype of corporate familism may be found in the kahun
(family precepts) of large merchant houses in the Tbkugawa period (1603-1867). However, the
familism as we know it today was devisedmore recently as an to the labordisputes
"antidote"
that erupted at the start of the twentieth century and which laterbecame associated with the
"'
There has been some both inside and outside Japan, as to the origin of the Japanese-style
eontreversM
theory and
''postwar
Kunio Odaka (1984)divided the debate into two eamps:

''immutability''
management,
evolution'' theory Represented in the United States by James Abegglen,the immutable theory
traces modern
Japanesemanagernent to the values ofpremodern Japan, By contrast, the postwar evolutien theory denies this
historicalcontinuity, arguing that the Japanese-style management is an anifieial system that was introduced
among large corporations after WOrld War II in order to compete internationallyand to meet the persistent
demand by laborunions for jobsecurity Both theories are extreme, however, because the system could not
have emerged in a social vacuurn, but itcould not have remained unaffected by historicalchanges either.

JapaneseSociety
of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
The Disceurse ef le(Family)in Japan'sCulturalIdentityand Nationalism:A Critique i7
socialist rnovement. It was also a device to rationalize the management of large corporations
in the process of Japan's capitalist development, which eventually strengthened their
competitive power in ,the world market. Thus, Hiroshi Hazarna regarded corporate familism
in modern times, that Japanese capitalists "reinterpreted
the idea of
''invented"
as contending
ie,which was the basisof Japanese society, to suit their purpeses and made up a fami}y-like
system of management (Hazama I989 [1963]: 123-124),i'
and control''
Second,the idea of corporate familismdevelopedin coojunction with that of the family

state, and they reinforced each other as the ruling ideologiesof modern Japan. As mentioned
earlier, the legalbasisof the ie systein was established when the CivilCode of 1898came into
fbrce.Itsphilosophical basis was expressed most clearly by Nobushige Hozumi, who stated in
Ancestor-VLlorshipand Law (1912): nation is considered
cJdpanese as fbrming one vast
''The
fttmily,
the Imperial House standing at itshead as the Principal FamilM and all the subjects
under it as rnembers of houses which stand in the relation of branch flrmilies

to the Imperial
House" (Hozumi1973 [19121
: 103,emphasis in original). Compare this idiom of
''one
vast
family"with that of the railroad family,'ban idiom invented by ShinpeiGoto.He was

''one
the
firstpresident of the Southern Manchuria Railway CompanM founded in 1906,which played a
vital role in Japan's colpnial administration of northeastern China,As Goto stated:
I preach that al] railroad workers should help and encourage one another as though they
were members of one family.A familyshou]d fo]low the orders of the familyhead and, in
doing what he expeets of them, always act for the honor and benefitof the family...I
attempt to foster among
my 90,OOOemployees the ideaof selilsacrificing devotion to their
work. I a}so preach the principleof loving trust.I teach them that they should facethings
and other men with loveand trust.(Quotedin Noguchi 1990: 83)
Corporate familismdovetailed
with the family-stateideology not simply in organizational
structure. Being contrasted with western individualism te emphasize the "virtue"
of Japanese
collectivism, it also played an essential role in Japaniscultural nationalism. The miupbten
ronso mentioned earlier revolved around the legitimacyof a civil code drafted by Gustave E.
Boissonade,a French professor of law hired by the Japanese government, In 1878,he wrote a
progressive civil code based on the Napeleonic Code of 18e4; the Japanese code was
promulgated in 1890 and was to take eflbct in 1893. There was, however, strong opposition by
conservative critics, among whom was Yhtsuka Hozumi, Nobushige'sbrother,He and his
associates maintained that the Boissonade Code, as itwas known, was founded on western
individualism, which, in their view, was derivedfrom ChristianityThus, they denounced the
Boissonade Code as detrimentalto Japan'stradition centered on the worship of the ancestors
(and, by implication, of the Emperor),As Ylitsuka Hozumi declared in an influential article

i]
Significantly,
this view was expressed two decades befbre the publieatien of The Invention of 7}'adition
{Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).

JapaneseSociety
l8 TAKAMI KUWAYAMA
written in 1891, 'rThe

BoissonadeCode would annihilatethe Japanese virtue of loyalty and
filialpiety" In the end, the conservatives won the dispute,and their views were reflected
strongly in the CivilCode of 1898,iL'

The same reasoning in the discourseof businesselites who advocated
was observed
corporate familism. For example, laborers'demands for better working conditions were
realized in the Factory Law of 1911 only after repeated attempts by the capitalists to abort it.
In 1903, the Chamber of Commerce adopted a resolution, which stated that legal constraints
on corporate freedom would prevent Japan from catching up with the western powers in the
industrial race; furthermore,making laws to regulate labor-management relations would
destroyJapan's tradition of paternalism" (Hazama 1989 [1963]
i'beautifu1
: 104),Paternalism
was conceived of as a benevolent custom incompatiblewith the western managerial systern
based on individualrights and duties.Also, the Japanese government's plan to establish a
Labor Union Law was opposed by a group of eapitalists, who fileda statement in 1930
containing the fbllewing arguments: (1)Japan is not a nation of individualism. The labor-
management relationships in our country are charaeterized by mutuai respect forharmony
This is why they have not been damaged by the cold, inhumane individualism of the West. (2)
In Japan, there ismutual trust,love, and harmeny between laborand management. Instead
of struggles, we have cooperation, Instead of rights, we have paternalism. (3)The labor
unions we have today are imitationsof those in the West, Their extreme behaviorthreatens
Japan'seconomic structure (Hazama 1989 [l963] :132). Itissafe to say that the ie or familism
was exploited by the ruling class as an ideology to legitimate their power, while masking their
interests. A Labor Union Law was not put into effect until after World War II,when
democraticreforrns were carried out under the regime of General Douglas MacArthur, the
Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP).i3

It should be noted that the discourseof nationalism is, like any other discourse,
"multivocalt'
and contains contradictory elements. The fact that cerporate familism was
occasionally criticized in newspaper commentaries attests to this point. For example, in 1929,
one journalist wrote, though the distinctive
r'Even
employment relationships in our country
may be considered an extension of familism, this familismcannet be maintained foreverin a
pristine fbrmt'(Hazama 1989 [1963]: 142), The questien, then, is this:why does one voice
become privileged over others, and sometimes over all the others, so as to attain hegemonic
'! Despite the conservative Civil Code of 1898 contained

character, the modern elements that reflected the
strong western influence in Melji Japan. For example, before 1898, family property had been considered
collective property belongingto the family itselCnot to any specifie individual.After 1898, however, it was
Tegistered in the family head'sindividual name. In order to argue that the ie is an invented tradition {e.g.,
Ueno 1996),we need to examine carefu]ly both continuity and discontinuitybetween the pre-Meiji ie and the
Meljiie.Although we tend to think of the Meiji ie when discussing the ie,it was not the same with the pre-
Meiji ie. In other words, the Meiji ie was a modern version of the Japanese ie that had existed since early
feudal times. Fer a classic study of the legal system in [[bkugawa Japan,see Kaoru Nakata (1984 r1912] ).
ii
For detailedEnglishdescriptionsof the controversy over the Factory Law and the Labor Union Law, see
Andrew Gordon {1985).

JapaneseSociety
of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
The Discourseof le {Family)in Japan's Cultural Identity and Nationalism:A Critique 19
status, and how this is accomplished?'" I would submit that codification is a major factorin
making traditioninto a powerfu1 fbree,whether
a itis or not.L5
''invented"
Also, in developing countries, including prewar Japan, the discourse of nationalism tends
to stress the "spirit"
ofthe people, As Hans Kohn (1944)and others suggested,i6 developing
countries in modern times have often constructed a cultural nationalism that stresses their
distinctiveness
and even spiritual superiority over rivals that are materially powerful. more
This is almost inevitable,for the nationalist discourseis that of the defeated(usuallythe

colonized) in the modern world thus taking
system, on the character of a counter-narrative
that challenges the victor. Being inferior materiallM they have exploited their spiritual
resources, often engaging in the "invention
of (Hobsbawm
tradition'' and Ranger 1983).In this
process, persons or things that are believed to represent their once glorious past are selected
as collective symbols, around which they rally to defend their cultural and national identity.
The iehas been one such symbol. In passing, the pitfa11of cultural nationalism liesin the fact
that, whereas it gives
confidence and prideto the vanquished, it also helps in the suppression
of minority groups among them because nationalist discoursein the developingworld is
ordinarily constructed by Iocalelites, Thus, Japan's corporate familismfailedto support part-
time employees, to say nothing of female workers, and the fami}y state sacrificed many of the
Emperor'ssubjects.
After Japan`s defeatin World War II,corporate familismwas labeledas t'feudalistict' and
attacked by more than a few scholars, It was, however,not subjected to criticisms as harsh as
those direeted against the family-state ideologyThis is probably due to the rapid recovery of
Japan's economy, which elicited favorable comments from western observers eoncerning
Japanese-style management. James Abegglen's71he Factor:yC1958)played a pieneer- cJdpanese
ing role in thisreappraisal, But the most influentialbook was Ezra Vbgel's as Number cJdpan
One (1980), in which the author attributed Japan's phenomenal success to itsdistinctive style
ofbusiness management. The Japanese were so flattered that Kunio Odaka (1984)was forced
to issue a warning that much of what had been said by foreigners was a
''myth.''
With regard to Japanese anthropologists' centributions, Kizaemon Ariga's study is

classic. As mentioned previously, he regarded the ie as a perpetual entity that transcends the
'`
Stein Ttfnnesson and Hans
Antlov C1996:18) ofTbred this insight: natien has several possible "Every
histories... One promising route of inquiry is to look at the several pussible nations which eould have emerged
from a givenethnie or political formation, and then ask why one ef them won out.''
i'i
Japan has many examples of the of tradition,'' formanipulation
'iinvention
of the past for present purposes
is particularly well developed in this country. However,invented traditions that have been
prescribed in the
]aw,sueh as the ie system, and those that have not been prescribed have completely differentimpaets on social
life.'"
In The ldeaoflVationalisrn (1944), Hans Kohn distinguisheclbetweenthe rationalì nationalism in
"political,
the West and the ''cultural,

mysticali' natienalism in the East. This distinctionwas further developedby later
theorists,among whom is Anthony Smith (l991), who contrasted the Western, model of the
i'civic-territorial"
nation with the Eastern model, Partha Chatteriee (1986)utilized John Plamenatzts
''ethnie-genealogical"
distinctionbetween ''western`'
nationalism and nationalism in his diseussion of nationalist
i'eastern''
ideas in
the developing world.

JapaneseSociety
20 TAKAMI KuwwAIIA
individualswho compose it at a particular derivedhis definitionof

time. From this view was
the ie as a seikatsu shndan, a group formed through living together (Ariga 1969:393).As is
well known, the distinctiveness of Ariga'stheory liesin his assertion that the ie is not a
ketsuenshi2clan (groupof people related by blood),but consists of people,both kin and non-kin,
who live and work together to sustain themselves and, ultimatelM to perpetuate the
colleetivity's heijFbe (genealogy). Ariga maintained that the status of ie members is determined
by their functional roles in maintaining the group and that positions within the ie may be
fi11ed by any competent person recruited from outside,i' His concept of ie is analogous to the
functional, as a task-oriented residential unit that
''household,"'
economic view of understood
cornprises both relatives and non-relatives who livetogether to perform common activities
directedtoward the satisfaction of needs (Netting, Wilk,and Arnould 1984: xx).

SeiichiKitano took exception to Ariga's view, Drawing on [[leizo
[[bda'stheory ofsh6kazoleu
(smallfamily), whieh emphasized the family bond arising from the members' trust and
affbction toward each other, Kitano argued that the familyconsists of only a small group of
kinshipmembers, centered on husband, bound by close emotional

wife, and children, who are
ties. He therefore excluded people like servants from the family Kitano criticized Ariga
severelM saying that the Japanese familyas conceptualized by Ariga is no differentfrom a
jigy6dantai (enterprisegroup) CKitano1976: 146). This debate,known as the

t'Ariga-Kitano
controversMit marked a crucial moment in postwar research on the ie and the Japanese
family.At the heart of the disagreementwas the tension between Ariga's functional appreach
to the ie (''household") and Kitano'semphasis on the affbctive relationships among hazeku
("family")
mernbers.iS
it is the between the ie the group" that

"enterprise
SignificantlM analogy and was
embraced in the study of cerporatefamilism,for it is readily applicable to the analysis of
companies, especially those that grew out of dbxoleunetworks. The dOzohu is ordinarily
understood as a
''federation
of ie'ibased on the hierarchicalrelations between a single honke
(the main ie)and its bunke (thebranch ie).It is,however, important to note that the ie
principle may apply well to small and medium-sized companies, but that it losesits utility
once organizations exceed the optimal size. Ariga in fact maintained that there are
iT
Ariga classified ie members into two categories: (l)chohkei (personsrelated in the lineof succession), and
(2)bbhei (personsoutside the line of succession), The patriarch and his successor belong to the first category
and have a higher than the successor's

status siblings, who are grouped together with non-kin members, such
as nago (tenants)and servants, inte the second category. Their differential treatment has been justifiedthe in
name of common good, name]M the collective welfare of the ie and the perpetuatien of its line (genealogy).
family''roughly to George Murdock"s
"independent
]S
In terms of composition, Tbda's "'srnall
corresponds
nuclear family''Tbda's theory was proposed in hisbook Ktz2oku Kbxb (FamilyStructure}, published in 1937. Tb
explain [rbda'stheorM Kitano used expressions likekaxoku ketsug6(family bond), kanjo--teki yagb (emetional
identification), jinhaku-teki gbitsuka {fusionof personalities), nai-teki taido (internal state of the mind), ete.
ClearlM Kitano stressed the psychological, affective aspects of family relatienships, as opposed te Ariga's
functienal approach, The Ariga-Kitano controversy is said to have contributed to the subsequent bifurcation of
familystudies inte anthropologM ethnology, and folklorestudies, on the one hand, and the soeiology of family,
on the other.

JapaneseSociety
The Discourseof le (Fami]y)in Japanis CulturalIdentityand Nationalism:A Critique 21
limitations
in the way the ie may be used as the basisof modern, large corporations. As he
observed:
In the Meljiand Taisho periods [1868-1926], Japan's when capitalism grew, management
of new enterprises had to be based on that found in the ie,All zaibatsu [conglomerates]
in modern Japan developedintolargebusinessorganizations through this principle. As
they develeped,however, they had to transcend the ie,and this means that there were
limitationsin the way the ie could functionas the basisof large-scaleenterprises. Large
corporations have overcome these limitationsby denying the principleof ie,but they have
used the ie as their symbol, that is,as theirspiritual backbone,(Ariga 1972:31)
Ariga expressed this dualityas the "negation

and affirmation of the ie.''
The firstchapter of Chie Nakane's tldpanese Society(1970),one of the most influential
books in the study ofJapan, is essentially an elaboration on Ariga's theoryi"Although seldom
noted explicitlM not even by Nakane, her concept of (ba),as eontrasted with
''frame"
(shihahu), arises from Ariga's concept shiklan, This is obvious

"attribute"
of seikatsu when we
examine how Nakane analyzed Japanese organizational behavior.

Neither ''attribute't
nor has been definedpreciselM but the former refers to the
''frame"
(shitsu) of a person (Nakane 1967b: 28),whether such as being

"quality"
ascribed or achieved,
of a descent group or being a professor.The latter, on the other hand, refers to

"a
a member
localitMan institutionor a particular relationship which binds a set of individuals intoone

group" (Nakane 1970: 1 ).Thus, being a member of X village and being a professor at Z
University are frames, In Nakane's mind, the ie is the archetype of Arguing that ''frame."
group consciousness is highly developedin Japan, she stated, essence of this firmly
"The
rooted, latentgroup consciousness in Japanese society is expressed in the traditiQnaland

ubiquitous concept of ie,the household,a concept which penetrates every nook and cranny of
Japanese society" (Nakane 1970:4 ).She went on to argue:
[T] he ie is a corporate residential group and, in the case of agriculture or other similar
enterprises, is
ie a managing body The ie comprises household members (inmost cases
the familymembers of the household head, but others in addition to familymembers may
be included), who thus make up the units of a distinguishablesocial group, In other
words, the ie is a socia] group constructed on the basis of an established frame of

residence and often of management organization. What is important here is that the
'g
This chapter corresponds to the second chapter of the Japanese original Tate Shahai no Kbxb (The Structure
of VerticalSociety),Non-Japanese
a readers should remember that there are many differencesbetween the
English and Japaneseversions. The former is rnore technical and conceptually precise than the latter,which is
intendedfora general audience, As for the parallelbetween Ariga's view ef the ie and Nakane's, Chapter 3 of
Nozomu Kawamura {1982) is usefu1.

JapaneseSociety
22 TmmrL KuwwAbtA
human relationships within this householdgroup are thought of as more importantthan

all other human relationships. (Nakane 1970: 4 - 5 )
Itis not difficult to detect Ariga's influence here, First, the original Japanese phrase forthe
"corporate
residential group" isseikatsu Zry6dbtai(literallM "collaborative
livinggroup'i)(Naka-
ne 1967b: 34),which Ariga used often in coajunction with seikatsu shadan. Second,the idea of
ieas a ''managing
body" accords with Ariga's functional,economic approach. Third,and most
importantlMthe view that the ie comprises non-family members was emphasized repeatedly
by Ariga, as we have
This is,of course, not to deprecatethe values
seen. of Nakane's
contributions, Her ingenuity liesin having shown the international significance of Japanese
anthropology by relating it to British structural functionalism.""

Nakane's study of the ie has had a strong impact because,likeAriga's,it has wide
ramifications in the study of Japanese societM especially that of eorporate familism.[[b
summarize in her own words:
[[b sum the principles of Japanese soeial

up, group structure can be seen clearly
portrayed in the household structure, The concept of this traditional institution,ie,still
persists in the various group identitieswhich are termed uchi, a colloquial form of ie.
These factsdemonstratethat the fbrmation of social groups on the basis ef fixedframes
remains characteristic ofJapanese social structure. (Nakane 1970: 7 )
In terms of the complication in Japanese attitudes toward the te beforeand after World
War II, which discussedin the previous section, Nakane represented
we a major turning
point in postwar intellectualhistory As she suggested in the introduction
to 7tite Shahai no
KbzO (The Structureof a Vertical SocietM1967),on which Soeietyis based,Nakane's cJZxpanese
thesis was originally a challenge to modernization theory and, to a lesser extent, Marxism.
She remarked that Japanese scho}ars labeledindigenouscustoms
had that did
customarily
of the feudal past."

"legacies
to the western
'"undeveloped"
not conform pattern as or
According to Nakane, this view was based on the premise that if Japan industrializedfu11M
itssocial structure would resemble that of the West, She flatlyrejected this premise,saying,
"ObviouslM
this view not only depends on a simplistic theory of development,but also derives
from the deeply instilled sense ef inferiority among modern Japanese intel]ectualsvis-a-vis
the West. They can only think of the West as an advanced civilization higher up on the
evolutionary ladder''(Nakane 1967b: 18).
From this perspective, we realize that Nakane's position was a dramatic reversal of the
dominant intellectualtrend in postwar Japan, Befbre Nakane (and a few others of her
persuasion), the iehad been considered the source of social il}sin Japan. Indeed, it was a
""
Nakane's comparison ofJapan with India, en which was based the idea of tate (verticality),
as oppesed to
yoho (horizontality), was also novel. I thank MoteiSuzuki forhaving pointed this out to me.

JapaneseSociety
of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
The DiscourseofIe (Family)in JapanisCulturalIdentityand Nationalisrn: A Critique 23
symbol of the old Japan at a time when sweeping social reform was taking place to
democratizeand medernize the AfterNakane, however, the ie came
country. to be seen as the
moral fiberof Japanese corporations that helpedelevate Japan'sstatus to that of an economic
power comparable to the West. Thus, the astonishing pestwar recovery of the Japanese
economy brought about a comp]ete change in the people'sevaluation of the ie.[IbrnotsuAoki
put itwell when he observect thatthe Japanese reading publie hailedNakanets boek because
"it
presented a theory that positively assessed the
'success'
of Japan's modernization,
especially the `groupism'

of Japanese corporations, in terms of the essence of
'Japanese
blood"'
(Aoki1990: 90).!i
In this context, the influence of some leading American scholars should also be
considered, For Robert Bellah, in his book 7bhugawa Religion (1985[1957]),
example,
regarded the Shinshi1 sect of Buddhism in the early eighteenth century as the closest
Japanese analogue of the Protestant Ethic,suggesting that Japan's rapid modernization was
owed to traditionalvalues. SimilarlMEdwin Reischauer (1965), a Harvard historianwho
assumed the post of ambassador to Japan in 1961,saw parallelsin the evolution of Japan and
Western Europe. Criticizing the Marxist approach to historMhe maintained that the feudal
experience in the two regions, far from hindering the modernization process, facilitatedit,
Like Abegglen,these scholars were instrumental in bringing about a more positive self
appraisal in Japan, beginningin the mid-1960s (Ariga 1967;Aoki 1990: 7'6-79).
Here, again, we
can see the convergence between mainstream Japanese and western <espeeially American)
scholars,
Perhaps the most ambitious attempt ever made to explain Japan's businessmaRagement
system, together that of the whole of Japanese society, is that of Ylisusuke Murakami,
Shunpei Kumon, and SeizaburoSato, the authors ofBunmei to shite no le Shakai (feSociety
as Civilization,
1979). This awe-inspiring 600-page book was in English by
summarized
Murakami, under the title, ''Ie
Society as a Pattern of Civilization't
(1984).The ie as
conceptualized by Murakami has four major features:(1) "'kin-tract-ship'';
(2)stem lineality;
(3)functional hierarchy; and (4)near-independenee or autonomy
''Kin-tract't
is a word coined
from "kinship"
and Francis Hsu's irnpertant
"contract`'
book Ienzoto (1975).
after According to
Hsu, itrefers to fact that the criteria forrecruitment
"the
to the iemoto are more flexible
than
to the kinship group but that once the relationship is entered into itbecomes as bindingas in
"i
Aoki classified the developmentof postwar nihonjinron into fbur periods. In the tirstperiod (I945-1954),
Japan's traditionwas totaUy discredited- a reflection of the negative selfLesteem damaged by Japan's defeat
in World War II.In the second period (1955-1963),when Japan entered the period of economic growth,i'
''high
Japanis relatjve merits were recognized. The third period is divided into two parts.In the firsthalf(1964-I976),
Japan's tradition began to be evaluated positivelM and it was often exploited to explain Japan'scuitural
identity and economic success, Both Nakane's Japanese SocieCyancl Takeo Doi's 7V}eAnatonayof Dependence
{1973) were published in this period. In the second half of the third period {1977-I983), the positive tone of
arguments was strengthened, and Japan's status as the worldis economic power was explained in terms of
JapanFs uniqueness. In Lhe last period (frorn1984 to 1990, when Aoki's boek was published), the search for a
new cultural identitybegan as Japan entered the age ofkohusaika {internationalization).

JapaneseSociety
24 TAKAMI KuwAyAMA
kinship" (Hsu 1975:237)."Stem lineality" refers to the principleof the "stem succession line,"
which guarantees the subsistence of ie members and their descendants. ''Functional
hierarchy''leadsto the "vertical"

organization of the ie,but unlike
"status
hierarchy"in the
it fosterssolidarity and homogeneity within the group.
''Near-
Indian caste system,
independence or autonomy'' refers to the factthat throughout the historicalcycle of the ie,
some ie organizations possessed the material basis for selfsufficiency (e.g., the [rbkugawa
daimyi) and were able to functionas autonomous groups within certain limits,
of the ie-type
"variant
Murakami considered Japan's modern management system a
organization," centending that the four featuresof ie are fbund, respectivelM in lifetime
employrnent, the perpetuation of the company, the seniority wage and promotion system, and
the intra-eompany welfare system and company-based labor union (1984:357).He further
maintained that the ieiscapable of replicating itself intolargerorganizations - a point made
also by Ariga and Nakane. He acknowledged, however, that the ie principle may not be
applied to politicalentities as effectively as to economic ones. As he remarked, [T]heie "
organization has itsown size limitation... The society as a whole has, at every attempt,
obviously been beyond the optimal size forthe ie principle" (1984:362).
Tleikie Sugiyama Lebra made the same observation. In her critique of Murakami's article,
she pointed out the
''limited
capacity of the ie for sociopolitical integration`'
and wrote:
An ie-basedpolity appears destinedto disintegrate, and the history of the iecyele seems
more likea concatenation of mini-cyc}es of organizational failures than of successes...
More importantly, the ie was undermined internally by the ie principle itsel £ The ie
organization iseffbctive only fbra relatively small group, best exemplified by the TOgoku
[Eastern] warrior-developer corps, but is inept at embracing a large jurisdiction. Hence
as longas the ie model was adhered to,every attempt at national unification was bound
to fail.(Lebra1985:63)
These statementspoint to the downside of the ie, as well as the danger of a nationalist
discourse utilizing the ie as Japan's spiritual backbone.The prewar familystate was highly
artificial, to say the least.
The fe in the Controversyover the [[Wo-Sumame Family
The ie system that had been laid down in the CivilCode of 1898 was fbrmallyabolished when
after World War II.Yet the ie consciousness

- a set of ideas and
the Code was revised shortly
attitudes derived from the system - is far from extinct, as is clear from many people's
concern with familycontinuity as symbolized by the family name and the familytemb. The
factthat the Imperial Code of 1947 eontains major elements of the ie systern, most notablM
succession to the headship by the eldest son (orto the throne by the Crown Prince) clearly

JapaneseSociety
of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
The Discourseof Ie (Family)inJapan's CulturalIdentityand Nationalism:A Critique 25
attests to the lasting symbolism of the ie.Moreover, the ie that has evolved over the long
course of Japanese historyis not synonymous with the ie system that was codified in the
nineteenth century. Contrary to the common assumption that the ie is defunct,it is very
much alive both as a cultural ideal and as a social organization,
In this section, I
from the ie model to Japan's cultural identity and
shift attentien
nationalism and take up as a case study the current debate on fiifbe

bessei,the two-surname
family,No attempt will be made, however,to givea detailedanalysis, for my objective is to
demonstratethe contemporary sigriificance of the ie forthe Japanese, I therefore limit myself
to examining how the ie has been appropriated to estab]ish and maintain Japan's national
identitM especially in opposition to western individualism.2"
Literallymeaning "husband
and wife assuming separate surnames," fafLtbessei was
proposed to help cope with the various changes that have taken placein the Japanese family
since the end of the war. Among the most netable changes are (1)the rapid increasein the
number of working women that began in the mid-1960s, and (2)the spread of a sense of
sexual inequality among women, especially professionals,

about the custom of changing
surnames after marriage, It has been is against Article24 of the

c]aimed that this custom
Japanese Constitution, promulgated in 1946, which stipulates that the individual should be
respected in family lifeand that husband and wife hold equal rights, As specified in Article
75e of the CivilCode of 1947, and wife assurne the surname
"Husband
of the husband or wife
in accordance with the agreement made at the time of marriage." In realitM however, women
are usually required te change their surnames to these of their husbands upon marriage.
Even though they may continue to use their maiden names as (aliases),
tsiisha these names are
net acknowledged officially When working wornen constituted a small minority of the
population, this posed no serious problem, but as their number increased, itbecame a major
social concern.
[ibcope with this situation, and to comply with the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination
against Women, whichthe Japanese governrnent signed in 1985,an
advisory committee to the Minister of Justice was set up in 1991 to investigatethe issue. In
February 1996, the committee submitted a finalproposal recommending to the government
that fafit
besseishould be legalizedand written into the CivilCode. However, much of the
investigation and discussion was conducted out of public view, and when the government's
plan to revise the Code was rnade publie, it invitedstrong opposition from conservative
politiciansand intellectuals. They quickly acted in concert to prevent the proposal from being
presented to the Diet.The government apparent]y expected no such opposition and handled it
ineptly,As the resu]t, the proposal was withdrawn, and in mid-2001 it still remained pending,
despite repeated attempts to put itback on the parliamentary agenda.
Besides the alleged sexual discrimination, the contrQversy involves many other elements,
including different
conceptions of the familM and, ultimatelM of the individualand soeiety It
"2
For an excellent anthropological analysis of the controversy over fdefit
bessei,see IchiroNurnazaki (1997).

JapaneseSociety
26 TAKAMI KIJwwAMA
has thus taken on an ideological

character. SignificantlM the iehas been referred to,whether
positivelyor negativelM by both sides of the controversM sometimes highlightedas the major
fbcus of contestation. Representativearguments lbr and against fafZt besseiare described
below.
Perhaps the best-known advocate of fafbebessei is Mizuho lawyer and
Fukushima, a
member of the Diet (theHouse

Councilors)since of 1998. Fukushirna described her book,
Klekkon to Ktz2oku (Marriageand Familyl1992),as an attempt to
''identify
prescriptions and
problems arising from the system' that lurks in the CivilCode of 1947't(1992:iii).She
'ie
supports fafit besseiforthree reasons. First, a person's narne has legallybeen acknowledged
as part of his or her
''identitM"
and the current one-surname family system violates this rule.
Second,the one-surname fami}y is the source of many

"inconveniences
and disadvantages"to
women, who are virtually fbrcedto ehange theirsurnames upon marriage. Third, the one-
sumame family system helpspromote the existing inequality between men and women, thus
preserving the ie system that is supposed to have disappeared,Fukushima contended that
the introduetion of a two-surname familysystem will change people`sviews of marriage from
one that carries the legaeies of the ie system to one in which husband and wife form an
association as independent individuals (1992:141-158).
According to Fukushima, the ie consciousness persists because it is supported by the
leoseki (family registry) system, which utilizes the family as the unit for personal
identification.
In this system, a person is identifiednot as an individual, but as the family
headis son" (who used to be the only son to inherit), son" (who used not to
"eldest ''second
inherit),and so on, Thus, Fukushima argued that it not only reproduces the same
hierarchical relationships within the family as did the ie system, but that it also restricts the
freedom of individual action. Furthermore,by recording the profilesof all familymembers in

a single book, the leosekiprovides the state with a means of political control, For these
Fukushima proposed te abolish the koseki.As she stated, 'Ìn
reasons, order to eliminate the
ie system and establish individualism, the family registry should be replaced with individual
registration. From the standpoint of the equality of the sexes and individual dignitMthe Civil
Code should be revised to installan individuallybased system of registration" (p,172).

Fukushima is widely regarded as a propagandist for the fafit besseimovement. Her
remarks such as the above have provoked many conservative critics, who have fought back
fiercely In January 1996, for example, shortly beforethe proposal for fiLfit besseiwas to be
submitted to the Diet,Masakuni Murakami took up the issueat a plenary session in the
House ef Councilorsand expressed his eoncern. He maintained that iilfit besseiwould weaken
family ties and eventually break up the family (The Mainichi AJewspcrper,February 8, 1996).
Murakami had been a House member since 1986, and had assumed many important
positions,including that of Minister of Labor.23He described his views on filfbe besseiin more
detailin a pamphlet entitled D6sei wa Ai o Haguhumi, 7bku o Hirageru AJihon no
''Faftt
Bunka" (The Single-Surname Family is an Element of Japanese Culture that Nurtures Love
and Spreads Virtue) (Murakami 1996).

JapaneseSociety
The Discourseof Ie (Family>

in Japan's Cu]tural Identity and Nationalisrn: A Critique 27
Murakami stated the beginningthat the proponents of

at ftzfit
besseiaim to destroythe
familyand te spread individualism. As he wrote, `'They
always emphasize
iindividual
dignity'
and the 'essential
equality of the sexes.' By fbllowing these principlesfaithfu11y,
they intend to
(Murakami 1996: 6 ). He further
in Japan
'individuated
create a thoroughly society"'
maintained that the proposed revision of the CivilCode was based on individualism, which
stresses the individual'srights, taking the satisfaction of individual needs and desires as
prior to the fu1fillrnent

of familyduties.
Murakami destroythe said that thisattitude would
familyin the end. In his view, children would suffer most seriously from the broken family.
He referred to the high divoree rate in the United Statesto illustratehow children have been
victimized. He then remarked:
Recently,divorcehas become in our country. Should the system offiiftz bessei be

common
introduced to satisfy the people who insiston individual dignitM the divorcerate in our
country will be as high as in the West. It is obvious that the familywill be destroyed and
that the children will fa11prey to a radical 1996: 9 ) i'individualism.''(Murakami
The West is regarded as a negative model, and its tradition of individualism is held
responsible for the soeial problems there. This viewpoint has been repeated by other critics,
as we will see.
Murakami labeledJapan's family"as part of a "traditional `'culture

deeply rooted in our
ceuntry'' and expressed his determinationto defend it firornwestern individualism, The
"traditional
family`'he mentioned refers to the ie,or approximates to it,as isciear from his
emphasis on the importanceof the "vertical
[genealogy]
line of life'' which , he argued has
been handed down from the ancestors. In his mind, familywithout a ancestra] rituals and
tombs would be no more than a
`'collection
of individuals,which hardly deservesthe name of
family"(1996:11-13).It is also a step towards the disintegration of the state. He concluded
with the fo11owing

peroration:
I believethat protecting the familM growing treasure, will contribute toward as a
defending Japan`s national history and tradition,thus transmitting itto our successors in
the future...There is something immutable, despite the change in time and personnel -
the i'vertical
fiow oflife`` [genealogy] running through our national history)
culture, and
tradition. We must think about politics by situating ourselves firmly in that flow.
(Murakami 1996: 22-23)2'i
U"
In late 2000,Murakami was invo]ved in a politicalscandal and was foreed to step down as a member ofthe
Diet.U`
Murakami's views remind us of Kbhutai no Hbngi (Fundamentalsof Our National Polity), issued in 1937,
which denounced individualism as the source of intel}ectualand social disorder in the West, As mentioned
earlier, Western individualism was contrasted with Japan's familism centered on Emperor worship, which in
turn was defined as the '"essence" ofJapanbs national polity

JapaneseSociety
28 TA}cAlvll
KUWAY.um
Politicalstatements like Murakami's have been theoreticallybuttressedby the writings
of conservative Among them isKtt2oku

intellectuals, no ShisO (The Philosophy of the FamilM
1998),written by Nobuyuki Kaji, president of Koshien Junior College.Referringto Samuel
Huntington'sidea of the of civilizations," Kaji predicts that in the twenty-firstcenturM
"clash
Japan will experience an internal clash between familism'iand indivi- "Confucian ''Christian
dualism."From this viewpoint, the controversy over fiLfu

besseirepresents the battleground
between people who honor Japan's tradition and people who espouse western values, Kaji
criticizes advocates of fufubesseibecause,according to him, their "hatred of the ie system"
from their praise forindividualism,`'
'iunqualified
arises
Many Japanese conservatives have attacked the Constitution

of 1946becausethey regard
it as having been by the SCAP regime during the Occupation period. With fafbe
'iimposed"
bessei,their prime target is Article24, which stipulates individual dignity and the equality of
the sexes in familylife, Not surprising!M Kaji describesthe Constitution as tenha no ahuhO
(''theworst law ever"). He argues that the major faultwith the Constitutionliesin its
individualisticprinciple,which he holds responsible for Japan's social problems today As Kaji
says, when individualism was introducedinto Japan in the middle of the nineteenth centurM
it clashed Japan's traditional values. But it was gradually accepted

with as a modern,
progressive idea,whereas indigenous ideas, includingfarnilism, came to be regarded as
premodern, feudalistic values to be eradicated. course, individualismdid not spread

`'Of
immediately.But the Japanese Constitution, a product of Japan's defeat in the war, idealized
it.ConsequentlM Section4 of the CivilCode, pertaining to and kinship,'was

'family
revised
completely so as to conform to the individualistic principle. The ideal of familismcontained in

the old CivilCode was rejected" (1998:177). Kaji goes on to argue that an individualism
divorced from the Driginal Christiancontext is no more than egoism, According to him, this
isrepresented by the of freedom'b in American societM
'iunrestrained
egoism eajoyment where
people livea life."

''beastly
Kaji asks, kind ef culture

''What
did the Japanese have befbrewesternization?" His
answer is familism.`'
''Confucian
TYacing the origin of the conflict between western
individualism and Japanese familismback to the minpOten ronsO (thecontroversy over the
Civil Code of 1898),Kaji praises Yatsuka Hozumi for his insightinto the fundamental
differences between the Christianand Confucian worlds. As already mentioned, Hozumi
declaredthat the Boissonade Code would annihilate the Japanese virtues of loyaltyand filial
piety,Kaji substitutes individualism" fbr the
'iChristian
Code,i'and "Boissonade 'rConfucian
farnilism,'' for and filial

''loyalty
piety''He summarizes his argument as fo11ows:
In the Christian world of Europe and America, where there is a tradition of
individualism, a pair consisting of a man and a woman forms a family as a contract
between two individuals.By contrast, the core of Confucianculture is ancestor worship.
Confucian familisrn definesthe family/home as a

"sacredt'
relationshiplplace in which the
"continuity
of life"inherited from one's ancestors is realized. This is what is meant by the

JapaneseSociety
The Disceurseof fe (Family)in Japanis CulturalIdentityand Nationalism:A Critique 29
"philosophy
ofthe family"in the Confucianworld. (Kaji1998: 189)
Another conservative intellectualwho has fiercely attacked fafltbessei is Yatsnhiro

Nakagawa, professorof politicalscience at the prestigious Tsukuba Universityand author of
more than ten books. In Kuni ga Hbrobiru (The Fall of Our Nation, 1997),Nakagawa
proponents of filfit
criticizes bessei for aiming to destroy both the marriage system and the
institution of the family Decrying the moral decay among young Japanese, Nakagawa
attributes itto the disappearanceof disciplineand moral education in the family,In his mind,
this signals the of the Japanese familM from something
''regression''
noble and civilized until
the CivilCode was revised in 1947,to something barbaric,beastlMand uncivilized since then.
As he maintains:
The family`sspine is the disciplineand moral education givenby the father(parents)to

his <their) children, A family without it could not be civilized; it is doomed to degenerate
into a barbaric,animal-like family,Consideringthe present-day situation, it should be
obvious that the CivilCode of 1898 was far more eivilized than the current Code of 1947.
Look at the Japanese family which is crumbling like scattered sand, See the erowd of
girlswho speak and behave vulgarly and those young Japanese without vigor and
character. The postwar Civil Code has failed.It has proved to be harmfu1 and wrong. On
the other hand, the old Civil Code that was adopted in Melji times was an admirable law
possessed of a progressive spirit... How to rejuvenate the familyis an urgent preblem
that Japan will facein the twenty-firstcentury Without the which functions as the `'ie,''
bulwark of [family life] it would be impossible to prevent the collapse of the Japanese
,
family We should waste no time to modify and revise the postwar CivilCode, so that
some of the excellent clauses in the prewar Civil Code may be brought back to life.
(Nakagawa1997: 127-128)
It is unclear what these '"excellent

clauses'' refer to, but the notion of family continuity is
central to Nakagawa's view. He blames advocates of fZZfit
besseifbr having failedto address
the question ofafterlife, and remarks:
The idea of fufit

besseiis based on a dogmatic beliefiIt neither allows us to honor our
(thepast) nor considers it morally forour
t'ancestors"
correct to take respensible action
(thefuture),The advocates satisfy their own desiresbefore

t'descendants''
are egoists who
on the falseassumption that the "living"

anything else can possess and consume
everything in their own generation. They believein what may be called the "absolute
good of the present (theliving).''(Nakagawa 1997:100-101)
Nakagawa then declares, r'The familyperpetuates itselfby being linkedwith the past, The
family is the source ofJapan's life.We must never letit dry up'' (1997:128).This recalls us to

JapaneseSociety
30 TAKAMI KU"asYA"{A
Ylinagita'sindigriationover
''domicide''
- the murder of the ie.Yanagita also regarded the ie
as Japan's spiritual foundation.25
The above represents justa few of the views firomthe on-going debateon fufit besseiand
does not exhaust the relevant literature, It does clarily however, the contemporary
sigriificance of the ie in the Japanese notions of nation, culture, and morality It is,in fact,
surprising that over halfa century after itslegaldemise,there is still such strong support for
the iesystem and a vehement call fbritsrevival, Also,itisworth noting that since the late
nineteenth centurM the attempt to search forJapan'sdistinctiveness has revolved around the
(supposed)contrast between familismand individualism,
InterestinglM the fafZt bessei controversy has evolved in much the same way as the ntinpo-
ten ronsOdid. The debatesresemble each other in the fbllowing ways. First,in both cases, the
government took the initiativein introducing or revising the CivilCode. This was partly the
outcome of foreignpressures.26Second, the government's plans were balked because of the
strong opposition from the conservative critics, They maintained that the plans were derived
from a blind faith in western individualism, which, theY claimed, conflicts with Japan's
tradition,In neither case, however, has "individualism'`
been preciselyconceptualized; rather,
it has been dogmaticallyopposed to Third, both then, the liberalshave

"familism,"
now and
tended to idealize the West as a model to fo11ow,whereas the conservatives regard it

negativelM attributing moral decay among the Japanese to the allegedly harmful influenceof
westerners. Fourth, the arguments presented on both sides of the controversy are too
ideological to consider carefu11y the reality of the Japanese family Thus, even basie
information,
such as statistics on family or household members and their relationships, have
seldom been given,
The last point that in the past centurM
shows from the time of the rninpbten ronsbto that
of fuflt
bessei,
the iehas been divorced from real lifeand manipulated politically.Indeed, the
ifi
Ylinagita'sview ef the ie as expressed in Jidai to AJbsei(1910)resonates with the moral teachjng, called shi-
shin, given in the prewar Japanese school, The fourthlessonin the shilshin textbook published in 1913 was
itcontained are deseendants of our will be ancestors
''We
entitled
T"fe,''
and this passage: ancesters, and we of
our own descendants. Therefore, we have obligations to both our ancestors and descendants. We should elevate
our familyname by discipliningourselves and behavingcorrect]M not justto diseharge our obligations to our
ancestors, but also forthe benefit of our remote descendants`' (Kbt6Shagaku Shitshin-sho,volume 1,page 10).
These bi-directionalobligations lie at the basis of Yhnagitais concept of the ie as a trans-generationalentity.
Beeause Nakagawa called tbr a revival of the Civil Code of IS98, which had institutedthe ie system, itis no
coincidence that his outlook resembled that of Ylanagita. SignificantlM the writings of conservative critics like
Nakagawa laidthe ground for the strong nationalistic sentiments lurking in the middle school textbeoks of
history and social studies prepared by a group called Rekishi Ily6leashe

''Atarashii
o 7lsuhuru-hai'' {Society for
Making New History Tbxtbooks). In the spring of 2001,a heatedinternational disputeoccurred concerning the
adeption of this groupis textbooks.
La
The Civil Code of 1898 was originally a part of Japan's modernization pro.ject.A modern legal system was
necessary to elirninate the unequal treaties Tbkugawa Japan had concluded with the western powers in the
mid-nineteenth century. The Civil Code of 1947, on the other hand, should be revised te comply with the
Convention on the Eliminatien of All Forms ef Discrimination against Wl)men, which the Japanese
government signed in ]985.

JapaneseSociety
of Cultural
of Anthropology
Anthropology
The Discourse ofle (Family)

in Japan'sCultura]Identityand Nationalism:ACritique 31
arguments the ieare not so much about the fami}yper se as about the Japanese nation
about
and itsstate. This probably explains why the ie has been discussedby many people outside
familystudies. The ie has been, and still is,considered a symbol of Japan that transcends the
mundane reality of ]ife.
Concluding RemarkS
By way of conclusion, I addressimportant question that has remained

an in the background
throughout: Why has the ie p]ayedthe vital role that it still does in Japan'smodern history?
ObviouslM factorsare involved,and it is impossible to givehere a short, satisfactory
many
answer, but this question has to be examined in terms of the vulnerability of the Japanese
family to politicalmanipulation. It is widely known that the modern family has been
exploited almost universally as a politicaldevice that strategically linksthe individualto
society In western societies, however, and probably elsewhere, no genuine attempt has ever
been made to create a familystate, at leaston the scale ofJapan's, This suggests that there
is something about Japanese social structure that invites the state's intervention in the
domain ofprivate life.
I would submit that this is related to the high degree of permeability of external
influences through the Japanese family,As Keiichi Sakuta pointed out in his influentialbook
of 1967, ever since the [[bkugawas estab]ished a powerfu1, centralized government in the early
seventeenth century, groups positioned between individual and societM inc]udingthe farnily,
have been deprived of their autonomy to a considerable extent. Thus, these groups have been
unable to protect their members from the pressures coming from neighboring people, to say
nothing of rulers."-' Put another way, the Japanese familyhas been highlyvisible from the
outside, and this visibility has
the group's defensefunctions,
weakened In this respect, the
Japanese familydifferedfrom the German familybeforeWorld War II;the Nazis attempted
te break the strong shell of the family against outside intervention in order to create a
tetalitarian regime in which isolated individuals were put under close, governmental
surveillance. As Sakuta remarked:
Japan's pewer elite made no effbrt to break up the family On the contrary, they
enthusiastically spread the ideology of familism.This fact may be attributed to the
inadequate defense mechanism of the Japanese family in protecting itsmembers from
'7'
The best-known example ef mutual surveillance in the [[bkugawa period is that of the gonin-gurni (]iterallM
five-persongroup), which consisted ofa group of fiveneighboring houses. This system was based on thc rule of
eollective responsibility, by which all people were held responsible for any wrongdoing by their group member.
The tonari-gumi (neighborhoodgroup) during World Wtir II is said to have developed frorn this tradition.
Although the tonari-gumi was abolished in 19,17duringthe occupation period,its marks are still visible in the
custom of, tbr example, circulating hairanban (a notice board) in the community.

JapaneseSociety
32 TAKAMI KUWVYYAMA
the exercise of state control. In Japan, the family has been regarded as an important
agent that nurtures confbrmity to external, soeial demands. Even todaM some people
advocate a revival of the old family [ie]system because they aim to create social stability
by strengthening the power of the centralized state. (Sakuta1967: 15)
Sakuta'sobservation was made more than three decadesago, but it is still fresh today as the
opponents besseiadvocate tight state control,
offtzfZt
In this paper, Ihave shown that the iedoes not simply refer to the family or household;
rather, it stands for the entire country of Japan, being appropriated at one time as a
metaphor for the
principle of a companM
organizing and, at another time, as a symbol of
Japan'sheritageto be protected, In this regard, the ieconstitutes a broad

''discursive''
sphere
in which differentaspects of discussedin the same

Japan are rubric,Ifthereis any novelty
and originality in this paper, itis because I have approached the ie as a discoursewithin
Japanese culture, not as a family institutionper se, as is usually the case with anthropo-
logicalresearch,
I conclude by expressing my hope that the extensive reference to both English and
Japanese literature in the foregoing has elarified the mutual relevanee of Japanese studies
both inside and outside Japan. Despite the apparent indifference to each other, Japanese
scholars have benefitedfrom their foreigncolleagues' contributions, and vice versa. When the
value of intellectualexchange across national and linguistic boundariesis recognized and
dialogue takes place, the horizonsofknowledge will broaden.
Acknowledgements
Professors Mutsuhiko Shima and Motoi Suzuki kindlyread an earlier version of this paper
and offbred usefu1 comments. ProfessorJ. S. Eades providecl me with editorial assistance. I
wish to take this epportunity to express my gratitude to them,
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in Japan`s CulturalIdentity and Nationalism/ A Critique 37
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cJtrpan:A

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JapaneseSociety

Japanese Society Cultural

The Discourseof le (Family)

sphere in which diffbrent

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The fe Model ofJapanese Society

In Japanese studies abroad, especially in the Anglophone world, there is a tradition of

arguments into two major How the ie is

appropriated in the current controversy bessei(two-surname family)will also be

The primary social unit in burahu lifeisthe household. Thishouseholdincludes

the house, bicycle of the house,cow of the house. (Embree1939:79)

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The Discourseof le (Family)

generation of scholars who visited Japan after the war.

The basic social unit on [[bkashimaisthe household...

or twelve persons... There is a strong feelingof unity among members of a household, A

grandfather is not grandfather,`'but ojiisan,

In Village Jdpan (1959),

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representative of his family"(Dore1958: 100) and that "the

irnportancethan the individuals who temporarily compose it''(1958:

the impact of the ie system continued to be feltin the district

has an important impact on familybehaviort' in Japan (Vbgel1963: 165).Vbgel describedthis

properly fordepartedancestors and prosperity of their ie...

eontingent on the continuation of the ie,(1963:165)

It is not mere coincidence that Vbge] wrote

Kunio Yanagita, known folklorestudies, regarded

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The Discourseef le (Family)in Japanis Cultural ldentity and Nationalism:A Critique 7

state. As he remarked, awareness

impressed with Sorokin'sconcept of in which family collectivism''

contrasted with economic individualism." Since Suzuki (1940:116-138)referred

[Therural family's]greater integrationmeans agreater nzutual fttsion

Galpin 1965 [1931]

Another important aspect of rural society is,aceording to Sorokin,the "cult

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Vblksgeist) is probably closer to Suzuki'sseishin than the English word

world of collective familymembers''

In the Japanese family as a peculiarlyidealized

persistenceof the familyas an institution"(1954:

Kinsh(pand Economic Organizationin Rural Jqpan (1967):

CONCEPT OF IE (HOUSHOLD) The primary unit of social organization in Japan is the

In a villagecommunity it is the household,not familyor kin group, thatforms the basis

In the preface to Su),e Mura, Embree (1939:xxii) expressed

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ofsocial organization. (Nakane 1967a: 1 )

regard to the biologica] relationships involved.

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Emperor andtaught to serve the Imperial House, if necessary

Our National Polity),published by the Ministry of Education in 1937, which

TakeyoshiKawashima, made simi}ar observations, In a lecturedeliveredat the Universityof

characteristic of Japanese fascistideology'' (Maruyarna1963: 37). In 1951, he further

considerable debate about whether familism'' should

the forerunner of contemporary Cultural Studies.

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The Disceurseof le(Family)in Japan's Cultural ldentity ancl Nationalism/ A Critique li

Japanese society consists of familiesand family-like bonds. The dominant familial

This complication in the discourseof ie,triggered by Japan's unconditional surrender in