The Political Process of Establishing the Mother-Child Protection Law in Prewar Japan

This article examines the development of the concept of mother-child protection in prewar Japan through an analysis of the political process leading to the establishment of the Mother-Child Protection Law in 1937. The Mother-Child Protection Law had been proposed prior to 1920 as a system of relief...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science Japan journal 2005-10, Vol.8 (2), p.239-251
Main Author: Tomie, Naoko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activists
Child protection
Child rearing
Child Welfare Services
Citizenship
Civic duty
Civil Rights
Countries
Equal rights
Family Policy
Feminism
Government policy
History of law
Japan
Legal systems
Modernization
Mothers
Nationalization
Participation
Political activism
Political history
Politics
Poverty alleviation
Protection
Public life
Science
Social sciences
Society
Voting rights
War
Women and politics
Women's movements
Womens rights movements
Womens suffrage movements
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Summary:This article examines the development of the concept of mother-child protection in prewar Japan through an analysis of the political process leading to the establishment of the Mother-Child Protection Law in 1937. The Mother-Child Protection Law had been proposed prior to 1920 as a system of relief for impoverished mothers and children, but only after Japan had entered into total war in the late 1930s did it finally come to fruition. During the war, the women's suffrage movement championed the legislative process by subordinating its original demands for the extension of the franchise in favor of the strategy of seeking participation in politics and administration through the exercise of existing political and civil rights. As a result, these women asserted that mother-child protection was not a form of poverty relief, but rather compensation from the state for fulfilling their public duty as mothers for raising the 'future nation'. Through the establishment of mother-child protection, women's advance into the public sphere through their cooperation with state policy as well as the re-definition of the role of mother as part of the public sphere formed a two-prong ideological strategy for achieving women's citizenship.
ISSN:1369-1465
1468-2680
DOI:10.1093/ssjj/jyi043