4 - Family culture

Summary

“All societies have a family system, but few are as consciously aware of their family system as the Japanese.” / Family system carries the image of components fitting into an organised whole; a sense of permanence and function. Family culture, in contrast, seems much less structured: / “a loose but identifiable set of assumptions and preferences that people use to make the critical decisions in their lives. Children absorb these preferences . . . but they also may resist them, or rethink them . . . they apply their assumptions and preferences to real problems . . . Through the choices . . . they create and re-create the institutions of society.” / Culture both shapes and is shaped by the choices and patterns of people. This chapter examines Japanese family culture from the Meiji period (1868- 1912) to the present, as a living and developing culture, and will shed light on the decisions that have shaped and continue to shape the institution of the family in Japan.