Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (30 page)

[6] In a national sampling of 1863 Japanese women in 1959 only 38 percent go out for anything beyond neighborhood-shopping more than twice a month, and the most common activity for going beyond the neighborhood is still shopping. Yet in answer to the question of what you would like to do if you had more free time, 32 percent said there was nothing that they particularly hoped to do, 26 percent said sewing, 8 percent would take in work, 7 percent reading, 4 percent children's education, 4 percent flower-arranging or tea ceremony, 3 percent cooking, 2 percent rest, 2 percent movies, 1 percent newspapers, 1 percent women's club activities; 16 percent gave other replies, but virtually none said go out to work. While these percentages were not confined to salary-men's wives, they reflect the fact that the desire to find other activities within the home are far greater than the desire to find activities outside the home.
Ibid.,
p. 27.

[7] While nearly as many girls attend high school as boys (in 1957, 1,275,931 girls were in attendance compared to 1,621,718 boys), fewer girls attend universities. The ratio of girls to boys attending colleges in 1957 was 1 to 4.5 (115,600 to 521,991 but the ratio is 1 to 7 when junior colleges are excluded from the calculation of colleges (71,152 to 493,302)
Fujin no Genjoo
(The Status of Women), Roodooshoo Fujinshoonen Kyoku, No. 44, 1959.

broad range of social activities before marriage and a limited range of social activities after marriage and the birth of children. While most American parents make little effort to limit their daughter's range of social activities before marriage for fear it might make them discontented after marriage, Mamachi mothers are aware of this problem, and try to restrict their daughters' activities so they will not be disappointed after marriage. A young man and his parents want a girl who has not had too broad experiences for precisely this reason. Even well-educated men attending the best coeducational universities often do not want to marry girls who attend the same university or who have traveled abroad because they might be discontented with the life of a mother and housewife.

Despite increased opportunities for girls to move freely on their own, social circles in Japan are sufficiently restricted so that most Mamachi parents have been able, with effort, to meet the challenge of restricting their daughters' freedom. The young Japanese wife is faced, not with contraction of her social activities upon marriage, but with a move from one narrow group to another narrow group. While this change causes her to feel lonely, it does not make her dissatisfied with her new role but rather encourages her to devote herself to her home and the rearing of a family.

To the extent that Mamachi women are satisfied with their lot in life, it is partly because of the romanticization of the horrors of the life of the Japanese woman in the past. If an old lady is asked about her experience as a wife or the life of her mother, one hears a story of difficulties, often mitigated with special qualifications: in her case, the husband was kind and it was not so bad; or in her case, the mother-in-law was kind; or she herself was strong-willed. Yet when one asks a general question, such as how was the life of a young wife a generation or two ago, one almost invariably hears a stereotyped story filled with suffering. For example, when the family sat around the hearth to eat, the young housewife sat on the side where the smoke blew, but often she was too busy waiting on the family to sit at all. She ate in snatches or when others were through, and then immediately set to work again, cleaning up and preparing for the next meal. She was the first up in the morning, the last to bed at night, and always at the service of her family. Not only did

she wait on the men, but on her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law.
^[8]
Stories of a young wife proving herself or suffering abuse if she failed are filled with pathos. The image of the newly married housewife in a strange home, exhausted from long hours of work, fighting to keep herself awake while lying in bed in the early hours of the morning to make sure she would be awake when it was time to prepare breakfast, is an image which still pulls the heart strings of the Mamachi resident.

On the basis of present stories it is difficult to hazard a guess as to how bad conditions actually were, except that the discrepancy between concrete stories and the generally romanticized stereotype suggests that at a minimum the stereotype is overstated. But regardless of the truth of the past, the image of the horrors of yesteryear is used by Mamachi wives as a basis of comparing their lot and in considering themselves fortunate.

Yet most of them do not consider their life a bed of roses. Some even resent their husbands having such good times, spending so much of the family money, or not providing more for the home and the children. But the path to better their position is not seen as going outside the home, but getting the husband to provide more for the home. While most Mamachi wives are not dissatisfied with staying at home, they are dissatisfied with laborious and dirty tasks of housework and do want to have more time free to enjoy their children and their own pleasures. Although traditionally a wife was supposed to take pride in her sacrifice and hard work, the Mamachi wife no longer considers it admirable or even necessary to carry coal to build wooden fires by hand, to cook rice in traditional pots, or to wash laundry by hand outside in cold weather. She would much rather use new electrical equipment and have time to spend reading, caring for the children, sewing, or cultivating the housewifely arts.

Electric machines are desired for their utility and because their newness imparts elegance to the housewife's life. Yet there is an

[8] Westerners usually think of traditional Japan as a land of female servitude. To the extent that the image is correct at all, it would be more accurate to say that it was a land of servitude of the young wife. An older wife, particularly the traditional mother-in-law, could hardly be described as servile.

even more important kind of elegance which is based on the art, not the mechanics, of the housewife's role. Housewifely arts like flower-arranging and tea ceremony originally required so much time and training to perform properly that only the wealthiest wives could aspire to such heights. Now such arts are within the reach of the average salary-man's wife, and it is to this elegance that Mamachi women aspire.

Nearly all Mamachi wives have had lessons in some housewifely arts. If they have not learned the tea ceremony and flower arrangement, they have learned knitting, Western- and Japanese-style sewing, crocheting, food-cutting and -arranging, or, more recently, Western-style cooking. They sometimes learn calligraphy, painting, or sketching. These talents are intimately connected with the housewife's role, and many girls spend two or three years after high school learning them rather than attending college, somewhat like the more limited number of American girls who attend finishing school. It is difficult for a young housewife to continue these lessons with small children but, once the children are in school, many form groups to attend special classes. There is an almost limitless variety in techniques of such skills as tea ceremony and flower arrangement. Many wives who have studied such arts for years will say modestly but sincerely that they are mere beginners. The acquisition and improvement of these skills is often a life-long goal which never ceases to be a source of inspiration.

The housewifely arts have had an enormous influence, not only on how the specific acts are performed, but on many other household activities. Those who have learned tea ceremony often serve guests with the grace and care of the tea ceremony, and those who have learned flower arrangement not only arrange their flowers and branches, but prepare and arrange food and dishes with the same eye to aesthetics. Those who have not had formal lessons are influenced by the style of those who have. It is this style which lends a touch of dignity to the housewife's role which is rarely found, for example, in the United States. The housewife's aspirations are found by perfecting the housewife role, not by escaping it.

The wife's aspirations are contained by the sharp division of labor just as the husband's aspirations are contained by membership in

the large firm. Just as the man has a limited optimism about the opportunities within his firm but does not expect to leave the firm, so the wife has a limited optimism that she can expect somewhat greater comforts for self-fulfillment within her role as housewife.

In the official ideology of "traditional Japan," the wife not only obeyed her husband, but showed that she enjoyed obeying him. According to traditional guidebooks on women's behavior, a woman's pleasure and freedom came not from asserting her independence, but from learning to want to do what she was required to do. She had no conception of rights, only of duties, and the only way to change her life was by attuning her character to the position she was expected to occupy.

However, when one asks concrete questions in Mamachi about a person's own parents and grandparents, one is often told that in their case the stereotype was not nearly so absolute, that the woman in fact had considerable say in how the house was run. In practice as well as in theory, the woman did show respect to her husband in public, but not necessarily at home. Even in traditional Japan, the husband often took little part in directing household affairs, and if the wife was supervised, it was usually by the mother-in-law rather than the husband. Even a generation ago, there was often a sizeable gap between the "beautiful virtue" of absolute obedience and actual practice.

Although the male dominance never approached the ideal, unquestionably male dominance has declined. As the popular saying goes, "since the war, stockings and women have grown stronger." Even the traditional saying, "fushoo fuzui," ("when the husband calls out, the wife jumps," the same pronunciation "fu" meaning either man or woman) is now sometimes interpreted by punsters as meaning "The wife sings out and the husband jumps." Others jokingly comment that even husbands who give orders to their wives

in public now apologize to their wives when they return home. While the power of the Japanese woman within the family has unquestionably increased with the growth of democratic ideology and women's political rights, these jokes, like wartime American cartoons showing rich ladies rushing to obey their maids, should not be taken to mean that the power balance has completely changed.

The contemporary Mamachi wife does have more freedom and power than the wife a generation ago. Because she receives the largest portion of the husband's regular salary without daily pleading, she controls the family budget. With new electrical equipment she has free time to use as she wishes. The increased possibilities open to her in shopping, in outside activities, and in friendships have broadened her range of personal choice. Because the Mamachi wife has no commitments outside the household, and is usually free of direction from her mother-in-law and other relatives, she has effective control over her own sphere of activities.

Farmers, small shopkeepers, and even independent professionals do not have a sharp separation between family activities and business activities. Since the father conducts his business in the home and the wife helps him in his work, she is constantly subjected to his authority. In those homes the father's centralized authority remains effective even though it is increasingly resented.

In the Mamachi salaried family, however, authority is decentralized, with the wife managing the home and the husband managing his work and recreation. In general, this principle of separate spheres of authority has been highly successful in maintaining harmony and satisfying the desires of both husband and wife.

The husband's sphere presents no problem. The wife knows little about the husband's work and therefore has virtually no opportunity to exert influence over his activities, nor does she have to help him with his work.

There is, however, a problem in the wife's maintaining authority over her sphere. As the husband has more free time to spend at home, and as the relative isolation of the nuclear family from relatives permits a closer relationship between husband and wife, the

wife has more difficulty retaining exclusive power over the household. The impact of democratic ideals has raised her status in relation to her husband's, but, paradoxically, by encouraging the husband's participation in the home, she restricts her own sphere of free activity. The husband still has more authority than the wife, and while he must also be sensitive to her wishes and may try to refrain from giving her orders at home, he finds it hard to avoid it entirely. And as much as the wife wants to please her husband by being gentle and obedient, she resents her husband's interference. The Mamachi wife's real concern about power is not about women's rights in political and economic affairs, or even equality within the home, but about protecting her right to manage the household without the husband's interference.

Major family issues, like the children's schooling and choice of marital partner, usually pose no jurisdictional difficulties. Such issues are considered legitimate concerns of both husband and wife, and discussions begin before either has a firm opinion and continue until a consensus is achieved. A couple may passionately disagree on the content of these issues, but there is no disagreement about the process of reaching a decision.

Often the minor issues lead to serious marital disagreements because they most clearly raise the question of who has the authority to make household decisions. Even minor queries from the husband about the method of food preparation or about the allocation of money for children's clothes can arouse a wife to a vigorous defense of her autonomy.