ANTHROPOLOGY HISTORY
GENDER ROLES AND PHILIPPINE BRIDES IN TŌHOKU kimbe rly s chl e ge l
Hanayome-san 花嫁: Asian Brides of Japanese Farmers The societal issues of an ageing population and low birth rates already posed problems in the late 1970s – especially in rural parts of Japan, where these issues were accompanied by a lack of young Japanese women available for marriage. In Tōhoku, located in the northeast of Honshū, the situation was so dire that it endangered the existence of some rural villages during the 1980s. Reasons for this surplus of single Japanese farmers were manifold, but a major influence seemed to be the incompatibility of the predominant, traditional family structure with the identities and modern gender roles of young Japanese women. The solution to this imbalance in the marriage market was to ‘import’ Asian brides. In this regard, Japan is seen as a special case, as the ‘mail order bride’ phenomenon was initially supported by private agencies as well as local governments. 1 These foreign brides, also named hanayome-san, were often painted as victims by the public and in academia, until more qualitative and gender-focused research into migration acknowledged the brides’ agency in making their own decisions.
Family Structures and Changing Gender Roles The ie 家 , which was once the family structure of the samurai, ‘has been re13