Japanizing Japanese Families: Regional Diversity and the Emergence of a National Family Model through the Eyes of Historical Demography (The Intimate ... Public in Asian and Global Perspectives, 15)

Book info: Japanizing Japanese Families: Regional Diversity and the Emergence of a National Family Model through the Eyes of Historical Demography (The Intimate ... Public in Asian and Global Perspectives, 15) (Hardcover, 468 pages) – Brill, 2023. Language: English.

This book draws on historical demography to elucidate the regional diversity of the Japanese family and its convergence toward an integrated national family model that heralded the modern era, providing a new image of the family in pre-industrial Japan. The volume challenges the idea of early modern (1600-1870) Japan as a monolithic nation based on the ie, – the stem-family household so often mentioned as the fundamental form of Japanese social organization and enshrined in the Meiji Civil Code – which, in fact, came into being at various locales, at various speeds in the latter half of the 18th and the earlier half of the 19th centuries. In addition, there are several chapters which examine the role of women, either centrally or tangentially. With contributions by Mary Louise NAGATA, YAMAMOTO Jun, Hiroko COSTANTINI, Stephen ROBERTSON, MIZOGUCHI Tsunetoshi, NAKAJIMA Mitsuhiro, TSUBOUCHI Yoshihiro and MORIMOTO Kazuhiko. Editorial Reviews About the Author OCHIAI Emiko is a Japanese sociologist and professor of sociology at Kyoto University, specializing in family and gender studies from historical and comparative perspectives. Her English publications include Asian Families and Intimacies, 4 vols. (2021).

HIRAI Shoko is a demographer and sociologist and professor at Kobe University. Her PhD was given in Japanese Studies, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies at Kyoto. Her current project is to elucidate characteristics of Japanese families throughout the past 300 years.