Defining the ie 20211220 - Video Transcript

The other night, I was watching a programme on German TV about the changing societal understanding of the family and new legal forms of partnership. This reminded me of a talk prepared for the intercultural communication seminar of my Japanology studies two years ago. As part of the course, we researched cultural terms applied to Japanese society, such as uchi-soto, shûdan ishiki, senpai-kôhai, danjyo kankei, ryôsai kenbo, honne-tatemae, chinmoku, amae and giri. And, of course, the subject of our assignment: the ie-system.

So, what did we present back in December 2019? First, offered a definition of the term and described the characteristics of the samurai-class ie. Then, we reviewed the legal status it attained for all Japanese citizens via the Civil Code of the Meiji era. We looked at its reinterpretation after World War II and in view of subsequent demographic changes. We also considered the significance of the iemoto in the traditional arts and of family patriarchs in Japanese business.

What is an ie? In the first instance, the word stands for the physical structure or building used as a dwelling or abode by a group of people. However, the term is also applied in the figurative sense to the family or multi-generation household living under one roof. Legally, the term represents a family group with a common surname, as we will see later. The term can also be used in a wider sense to include the complete family tree of a kinship group or clan, from ancestors down to unborn heirs. A formal English definition of the patrilineage was provided by Hall & Beardsley in 1965.

The objective of the ie system is to ensure the welfare and survival of a group of humans through sensible and productive co-operation of all its members. In the conventional ie system, the patriarch, or head of the family enjoys a highly privileged status and, in principle, wields absolute authority over – and responsibility for - all family members and their affairs. He also holds governs over all the family’s material assets, which he ultimately entrusts to the single heir of his choosing. Daughters and (generally the) younger sons leave the family home on coming of age to establish a new place of residence for their own children. Samurai of high status openly maintained concubines in parallel with their official wife and children. The bloodline, or family tree, thus runs through the stem family, the branches intertwining with other families. A multitude of heirs and intermarriage is a means to assert political power over a domain.

The wife is formally in a weak position. She defers to her husband’s profession, and it is her duty to produce an heir. There are contingencies: adoption is an alternative to the blood air, in the first instance when there is no own heir. An alternative heir may also be designated as considered necessary in the eyes of the head of the house or patriarch to ensure an effective administration of the family’s assets on his passing. It is an important responsibility of the heir to ensure that the rites of worship and the maintenance of the family grave are kept up.

This belief is rooted in the ancestor worship practised by the Japanese from early times. The ancestors in one’s family tree are thought of as a community of souls in Shintô, and in Buddhist belief, become hotoke (enlightened souls) after death. The living members of the ie are acutely aware that the ancestors established the material foundations for the wealth of a family and are the raison-d’être they exist. On passing over, the ancestors benignly protect the household, providing they are properly revered. For this purpose, we find a butsudan, a family altar, and a kami-dana, a shelf for holy objects in many Japanese family homes. On special occasions such as the o-bon festival or New Year, the ancestral grave is visited, as seen on the previous slide.

The legal concept of the ie was formalized in the Meiji civil code, which essentially remained in place until Japan’s modern constitution entered into force after WW2. The model of the samurai ie was adopted by new bureaucrats, many of whom had a samurai background. The novelty was that the

same principles should from now on apply for all of Japan’s population. On the face of it, this is a noble and egalitarian move. The head of the family is its legal guardian, and decides over marriage, divorce and adoption of new members into the family. He also assigns a place of residence for members leaving the ancestral home and can exclude members from family association by striking them from the koseki. As we will see in a moment, the koseki is a legal document that is kept by the local authority of the stem family’s place of origin even when individual family members have already moved away. Maybe less unusual, parents are the immediate guardians of their children and need to agree to marriage, divorce or adoption. The parents are responsible for the upkeep of their own home, and the husband administers in custody assets for the children, as well as the wife.

The koseki was in fact introduced in 1872 even prior to formalization of the legal code shortly after the Meiji restauration. It laid the foundations for the modernization of Japan and was also blamed as an element in the rapid militarisation of the new-born nation state. It supersedes the goningumi and other registers of the Edo period. The document combines several functions in one, that we in the West often separate: it records births, deaths and marriages as well as being the basis for the national census. Its use was adapted after WW2: when a child leaves the family home, it establishes its own koseki. Up to a law in 1974, these records were surprisingly transparent. For example, potential employers could make enquiries into the family background of their employees.

Today’s civil code is based on the new constitution of 1947 which establishes the kazoku as the new legal term instead of the ie. As we already saw, the koseki format and its use were adjusted.

Husband and wife share equal rights and joint assets are held equally. Marriage or divorce requires the consent solely of the partners. On divorce, there is a final settlement, and the custody of children usually reverts to the mother who sees to their education. -- The past 75 years have brought significant demographic changes to society. The rebounding of the economy after the war went hand in hand with structural changes. New jobs were in cities, not on the land, resulting in strong urbanisation and near ghost towns in the countryside. Both women and men took up paid positions, becoming so-called “double earner” couples. People began to follow a more individualistic and selfdetermined lifestyle, the nuclear family and single household being the new norm. An ageing society due to a low fertility rate are newer societal challenges, and were already recognised in the 1990’s.

Let us cast a glimpse at the rapid change in the demographics, courtesy of statistics collected by the Japanese ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. We can see that over a period of only 21 years – from 1986 to 2007 – the ie-style “three-generations under one roof” declined from making up over 12% to barely 5% of all households. However, at the same time, nuclear families, that is families with children living in the home, also reduced significantly from over 32% to under 20% of all households.

The significant increase in the number of households without children is mainly due to the increase in single households, that is unmarried individuals or old people living alone.

We also reviewed an analysis by Akihito Kato of preliminary results published in the English language in 2013. Kato looked at “marriage by wife’s birth cohort”, that is he compared couples of the same 10-year “generation” with other generations. We note that just after WW2 over 56% of married couples continued to live with parents, the portion of newly-weds moving into patrilocal home being far higher than those moving in with the wife’s parents. However, the percentage of couples continuing to live in the matrilocal home at about 8% of all couples hardly changed with time and marriage cohort. Whilst over 45% of couples moved into the paternal family home after WW2, this declined to only around 20% for couples with the wife born in the 1960’s. Interestingly, this percentage rose over time such that by the 2000’s, almost 30% had taken up residence in the paternal family home, whereas more and more families from the 1920’s generation moved out after several years of marriage, perhaps when children came along or job responsibilities required such

that only just over 30% were living with paternal parents by the 1960’s. Conversely, it seems that some of those marrying in the 1980’s and 90’s enjoy the convenience of renting for a while and then support their ageing parents.

We can thus summarize that there has been a relative increase in maternal co-residence, albeit at the low base of 8% of couples. From this slide we surmise co-residence is more common in the countryside than in cities, especially for the eldest son, but that the difference between urban areas and country as a whole has narrowed. A further statistic illustrates - unsurprisingly - that more assets are transferred from the paternal side and that financial support from both parent sides of a couple has been steadily increasing in more recent times. Since wealth data is not generally publicly disclosed, what is reported is probably an under-representation. We also saw data that showed the strong increase in “love” marriages as opposed to “arranged” marriages. Whereas after the war, more than 64% of marriages were formally arranged, 82% of couples today state that they freely choose their partner. One notes that informally arranged marriages became more popular between 1982 and 2015. However, the practice of so-called “corporately arranged” marriages between staff working in the same company declined. At the same time, the mean age at marriage has been rising continuously, from about 24 years for a woman and 27 years for a man after the war to around 30 for both today. In fact, as of 2015, 50% of young men and 34% of young women professed to not being in any relationship whatsoever. Another striking feature is the reduction in female fertility, that is the “number of children born per woman”. This reduced from a post-war peak of almost 5 children to around 1.4 today, although there has been a slight rise in recent times. A comparison of the population structure of 1950, 2005 and the forecast for 2050 is instructive. This clearly illustrates the challenges of the greying society. In fact, Japan’s population is forecast to shrink from its current around 128 million to about 95 million in the next 30 years. By contrast, Germany is expected to keep its population stable, not least because of allowing controlled immigration.

Let us now turn to a slide featuring famed Japanese sociologist, Chie Nakane, still going strong at 95 years of age in Shinjuku ward, Tokyo. She re-imagined the ie in the late 1960’s to bring it into the post-modern age. Emphasis is placed on the benefit society derives by organising itself into cooperative social groups. Nakane rejects the antiquated elements of male primogeniture and of strong authoritarian rule. Rather, she considers the ie a corporate residential group or managerial body for members living together, working and interacting in a particular location.

The tradition of ie is actually still in evidence in Japanese business. A paper from 2013 noted that approximately a third of all companies listed on the stock exchange are led by a family patriarch. We are talking large companies with significant market capitalization, not independent craft- and trades businesses. For example, Suzuki Corporation’s chairman Osamu Suzuki only stepped down as chairman this year at age 91 and continues as an advisor to the company. However, the author of the study comes to the perhaps surprising conclusion that patriarch-led businesses outperformed companies led by hired “professional” guns. Success may also have something to do with the Japanese tradition of “adopted sons”, since only half the businesses pass on to sons by birth. iemoto is a term associated with the Japanese arts, such as the theatre, the tee ceremony and flower arranging. A “family head” is designated as the living “grand master” of a particular school or tradition.

In the case of the kabuki theatre, “Ichikawa Danjûrô” is just one traditional stage name that goes back to a famous actor or yakusha. It is bestowed on new masters in a naming ceremony on passing of the old master. Here we see a succession of those honoured to have held the name, who are not necessarily father-sons.

In the tea ceremony, the iemoto title varies with the school. Three important tee-traditions trace their roots to the famed tea-master Sen-no-Rikyû, who lived in the 16th century and famously served both Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, until the latter accused him of treason.

This is where our presentation ended. In the group and with our seminar leader, Dr. Chantal Weber, we considered questions, as on the slide. In my marked first-year Japanology essay, I delved deeper into the first question: “Is the ie-system a guarantor for cultural knowledge transfer?”, including reflections on the telecommunications model of Shannon and Weber published in 1948.

Here a few bonus slides prepared for the discussion. We pulled out Japan’s “scorecard” based on Geert Hofstede’s 6 dimensions of culture. Japan scores highly on masculinity, predictability and longterm orientation. Individualism and indulgence are considered less pronounced in Japanese culture.

These characteristics seem to be reflected in the ie system. The intermediate score on power distance is interesting: Whilst the ie-system provides a strong hierarchical structure within the household, the households can interact with each other within a relatively weak central structure.

For example, factions centred on leaders play a strong role in the Japanese Diet, coexisting within the same political party.

I made up this slide when I thought I could hear echoes of the ie system in the work of the German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist Max Weber. Weber lived from 1864 to 1920. He introduced the term of the “Pater Familias” as “the head of the household” and described a traditional form of house rule centred on power and submission, not unlike the ie.

Finally, a few quotes from Sandra Buckley’s encyclopaedia of contemporary Japanese Culture from 2002. We see levelled the accusation that the national notion of ie contributed to Japanese militarism, a form of “Gleichschaltung” or “enforced conformity” and reverence of the authoritarian Father – or Führer - Figure that was also a hallmark of the Nazis. However, whereas young sons were once required to fight wars, they are now needed to keep an economy humming and to look after the aged. Today, Japanese society seems to be marked less by the authoritarian than by the absent father and the overbearing mother.

You can gain more information from these references consulted in preparing the original presentation. Bye!