Importance Of Ie In Japanese Society

In order to be able to consider the relevance of the ie to an understanding of contemporary Japanese society, it is necessary both to understand the full meaning of ie and to have an awareness of contemporary Japanese family life and its variables. I will therefore endeavour to analyse and explain the meaning of ie and, by comparing traditional Japanese lifestyles with contemporary ones, attempt to evaluate its modern-day relevance. In considering the different influences on contemporary Japanese family life – location, education and class, I hope to be able to make a realistic evaluation of the relevance of the ie to an understanding of Japanese family life, bringing in any evidence of the influence of the ie on other aspects of society, before drawing a conclusion.

The Japanese use the word ie in much the same way that the English say home. It represents not only the physical structure of the place of residence but also the security and comfort that it offers, and the people who share it. However, its meaning is far deeper than the English home. It also signifies someone's lineage or loyalty to a group, crossing the connections and boundaries of marriage and death, in a way that home does not. Dating from the Meiji Period, ie, a term that literally means ‘house-belongers’, is most commonly used to indicate ‘a domestic unit composed of individuals related by blood or marriage’. There is no real English translation for it, and whilst some may find it appropriate to use the English word family, Joy Hendry, a Professor of Anthropology proposes that its corresponding term is ‘House’, as in ‘House of Windsor’ or the biblical 'House of David'. With this in mind, the concept of continuity, which is a fundamental factor in the J...

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...s; and the grandparents did not live under the same roof; there did not seem to be any obvious descendant present apart from their daughters and there was no apparent pressure on the girls of my age to find suitable husbands to ensure the continuity of the family. It is impossible to really say to what extent the ie maintains its influence on contemporary Japanese family life. Now influenced by the Western World, Japan's families are not all following the ie system but we have seen that it depends on where and how the people live and how traditional their values are. However, the ie maintains certain influences both in practice and in thinking and as long as those influences exist and its values are lived in companies and religious groups, it will be relevant not only to an understanding of contemporary Japanese family life but also Japanese life in general.