Afterword

During the Yayoi period in Japan (200 B.C.–300 a.d.), when the inhabitants began to engage in rice-based agriculture and to acquire holdings of land, a dramatic shift took place in the structure and function of the family. The previous Jomon or neolithic period was a maternal system in which the role of the father was scarcely recognized, and he lived separately away from the “main house” where the woman stayed. The word for “parent” indicated only the mother. By the advent of the Yayoi period, the adult males had gained in economic and working power, had assumed a dominant role, and had established a paternal system. The word for “parent” now included the father with a suffix to imply that he labored in the field. By looking at the original forms of Kanji, the hieroglyphic characters derived from China over 3,000 years ago and adopted by the Japanese, the character representing “father” was formed by a combination of the symbols for “right hand” and “stone axe.” Therefore, the etymological meaning of the character for “father” is “having a stone axe in hand and working”: https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315799056/7cfe2908-e5c9-4a00-aa46-016c1e51766b/content/figu37_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> The character for “mother” was created at around the same time and formed from a combination of symbols for “woman” and “breasts.” Thus, the etymological meaning of the character for “mother” is “a woman nursing a baby”: https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315799056/7cfe2908-e5c9-4a00-aa46-016c1e51766b/content/figu37_2_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> I am indebted to Dr. Kosuke (1978) for this interesting piece of information illustrating the first of a series of transitions that have taken place in various cultures and that have followed similar sequential patterns: The man is first recognized as a father; then gains admission into the family circle; takes over the leadership of the household in relation to other families; plays an increasingly intramural as opposed to extramural role; and, finally, in this age, has invaded the nursery and has become a caretaker along with the mother of both infants and children (cf. Chap. 27). The dynamic impact of such transitions on the developing offspring must be considerable and switch the emphasis from preoedipal to oedipal upbringing. In a wide variety of ways, this book deals with the different effects of too little and too much father in the family and with all the different proportions in between.