ABSTRACT
In the ie, the form of family and household organization legally sanctioned by the Meiji Civil Code, the role of women was simple: to obey. The theory that prescribed this role for women was articulated in the seventeenth century in the Onna Daigaku (Great Learning for Women) by the male neo-Confucianist Kaibara Ekken, who wrote: ‘The only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedience, chastity, mercy and quietness’ (quoted in Hendry 1981:20). It is not hard, then, to understand how, from a feminist perspective, the emphasis on the ‘good wife and wise mother’ (ryōsai kenbo) image promulgated in the Imperial Rescript on Education in 1890 and celebrated throughout the war years could be seen as a step forward. Instead of a suffering servant automatically obedient to her husband and his parents (especially her mother-in-law), a woman affected by romantic ideals infiltrating from Europe or the United States might see herself as ‘a better half on the European model, a companion and friend to her husband, equal to him and able to discuss his work’ (Hendry 1981:26).
