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The Socialization of Aristocratic Children by Commoners: Recalled Experiences of the Hereditary Elite in Modern Japan

1990; Wiley; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1525/can.1990.5.1.02a00050

1548-1360

Takie Sugiyama Lebra,

Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy

In my previous research on Japanese women (Lebra 1984), I learned that, prior to the postwar educational liberation for ordinary women to go on to college, lower- and middle-class girls typically spent premarital years, upon graduation from grade school or high school, at households above their own classes as maids or etiquette apprentices. For poor families, this was the only available and acceptable employment for a daughter if only to reduce a mouth to feed, while better-off families considered it a rite of passage to transform an unfinished girl into a qualified bridal candidate. Matchmakers would count such cross-class apprenticeship as an important, sometimes mandatory, credential for a bride. This finding prompted me to turn to the upper-class Japanese, particularly, aristocrats, as the next research project with the hope of gaining a stereoscopic view of Japanese society. Indeed, I found commoners entering the interior of aristocratic lives and leaving an indelible mark there, in a way much more than as apprentices absorbing the upper-class culture. This article presents a portion of my current research on the Japanese elite, focusing on the part played by commoners in socializing the aristocratic children. A Historical Sketch of the Modern Japanese Nobility Aristocracy here refers to the moder nobility called the Kazoku, the flower lineage, that formally existed from 1884 until 1947 when it was abolished under the postwar democratic constitution. The Kazoku as a status group stood right below the emperor and royal lineage group, and above the gentry (shizoku, largely coming from the samurai vassalage) that was fused into the lowest and largest class, commoners. The Kazoku membership was of diverse backgrounds, but comprised three major subgroups: the former court nobles called kuge who had served the imperial court in Kyoto; the feudal domain lords, commonly called daimyo, who had owed loyalty to the military government headed by their overlord, the shogun, residing in Edo, present Tokyo; and the meritorious nobles who rose, in most cases, from the modest status of the lower-ranking samurai vassals due to their performances contributive to the state. The Meiji Restoration of the imperial regime, at the dawn of moder Japan, marked the division between the