Japanese History Attribute Meiji Masculinity

¶ … Japanese history attribute Meiji masculinity to the peculiar customs of the Meiji period, its specific characteristics of the Emperor, and, in some related way, its association with the Western world. Investigation of the relevant material actually denotes Meiji masculinity to have roots that go back far earlier, and it is this essay's suggestion that these roots trace themselves to an influence that was strong on Japanese thinking of that period: Confucianism.

Using primary sources, this essay summarily describes the Meiji period, elaborates on Meiji masculinity, shows the impact that Confucianism had on the early to pre-modern Japanese mindset, delineates Meiji treatment towards women, and concludes by demonstrating how Confucianism integrated with Western influences resulted in Meiji masculinity particularly in their impression of and treatment towards women. These influences have, to a greater or lesser extent lingered today.

Part I.: Meiji Period

On 3 February 1867, 15-year-old prince Mutsuhito succeeded his father, Emperor Komei to the Chrysanthemum Throne as the 122nd emperor, and the Meiji period began.

A new government was formed the following year, the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown with the fall of Edo in 1868, and 'enlightened rule' (the Japanese definition of Meiji) commenced and, allegedly, lasted until 1945. (the Meiji Emperor died in 1912, and was succeeded by his son, the Taisho Emperor who died in 1945).

The aims of the Meiji regime were proclaimed via a Five Charter Oath in 1868 drawn up in order to boost morale and win public recognition and monetary support for the new government. Its objectives were as follows:

1. Establishment of deliberative assemblies

2. Involvement of all classes on carrying out state affairs

3. The revocation of sumptuary laws and class restrictions on employment

4. Replacement of 'evil customs" with the "just laws of nature" and,

5. An international search for knowledge to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.

Influenced by Western environment, the Charter also moved to replace exclusive political rule under the bakufu with a more democratic and constitutional style of government. An eleven-article constitution was drawn up to implement the Charter. Statutes included providing for systems of ranks for nobles and officials, legislative bodies, and a new Council of State, besides which details for a new taxation system were outlined, legislative bodies and a new Council of State were delineated, office tenure was limited to four years, public balloting was allowed and there were new local administrative laws.

Aiming to curry favor with the foreign powers, the Meiji government assured the West that it would act in accordance with international law, and Mutsuhito emphasized the title of his reign -- Meiji -- to persuade the West of his positive intentions and to illustrate that this new Japanese era would be characterized by a move towards Enlightenment. In accordance with this resolution, the Emperor relocated his capital from Kyoto to Tokyo, which became the new name for Edo. Simultaneously, the daimyo voluntarily surrendered their land and census records to the emperor in the Abolition of the Han system, signifying that land and people now belonged to this new order.

The daimyo became governors, the han were replaced with prefectures, the national government assumed reinforced power, more radical samurai (in a manifestation, as we will see of this the Meiji masculinity) characterized the new Meiji government, and a new ruling class appeared made up of a lower-ranking but far more Westernized version than the former1.

Confucianism and Shintoism were reunited. Efforts were made to establish a state, similar to that of 1000 years earlier, built on these beliefs, and the Office of Shinto Worship, superseding even that of the Council of State in importance, was established. Confucianism and Shintoism asserted the Divine power of the imperial house by virtue of the kokutai ideology, and the government supported Shinto teachers, whilst certain Shinto sects were accorded state recognition2. Confucianism, closely allied to Shintoism in Japanese ideology and sociology, remained an important ethical doctrine. It was Confucianism's impact on Japanese thinking that contributed to Meiji masculinity, and this, in turn, was modified and shaped by the Meiji infatuation with Western ideology and methods.

Part II. Confucian Influence

The era that preceded the Meiji reign, the Tokugawa period characterized by its system of shogunal rule, was heavily based on Confucianism and, in fact, directed itself by reliance on its dictates. Of significance to this essay is the fact that shogunal rule represented a reverence to Confucian gender norms which, in turn, seeped into the larger Japanese society and effected its citizens.

Paradoxically enough, it was a great Japanese thinker and activist, Ogyu Sorai's Seidan (Discourse on Government) that prompted this social more. Criticizing the 8th Tokugawa shogun Yoshimune, he draw upon Confucianism to reprimand matters of sexuality that were corrupting the women quarters of the Shogun, and he urged the men to portray a characterization more worthy of their gender. Using the classics, Sorai implied that the Shogun's impropriety would destroy their current state of rule ushering in an eventual 'change of mandate'3.

The Meiji, this succeeding mandate, renewed in all including name in order to signal a 'new' epoch, adopted Sorai as their prophet and his text as their bible. Keen on emphasizing their masculinity, they sought to eliminate 'the power of women' (joken), first and foremost from the influence of the court. Their credo thus became to disperse 'the hens' (hinkei), since these 'hens' only introduced 'disaster to the house'. These were familiar assertions re-introduced from the Tokugawa period.

The reference to the hen quite likely stemmed from the classical phrase that: "the hen does not announce the morning. The crowing of a hen in the morning indicates the subversion of the family" (Seikiguchi, 2008, 202). In other words, it is the male -- not the female- who crows the hour. Were the reverse to be the case, the family and state are at risk. A phrase from the Speech at Mu in the Shujing (Book of Documents) states that:

The king [i.e. Wu, the founder of the Zhou dynasty] said, 'the ancients have said, "The hen does not announce the morning. The crowing of a hen in the morning indicates the subversion of the family" (Leggee, 1865, 3024)

Wu, king and ancient sage, had defeated Zhou the last ruler of Yin. Detailing his crimes, he emphasizes the fact that one of the most grievous amongst Zhou's misdeed was that the hen is supposed to 'announce the morning whilst he Zhou, the king of Yin 'follows only the words of his wife' 5.

This tale indicated nefarious female influence and the results were frequently narrated in the Confucian tradition and by Asian historians. The 'Niebi Zhuan' (Biographies of Evil Consorts), for instance, brings Daji, King Zhou's favored concubine as an instance, concluding that:

King Wu employed the Heavenly punishment, beheading Daji. Her head was hung on a small white flag to demonstrate to everybody that it has been a woman bringing disaster to King Zhou.' 6

Similar examples drew on the Empress Baosi who also destroyed her husband's rule, and Moxi, the concubine of King Jie. The implied message, throughout, was that the dissolution of king and state was attributed to a woman. For a new regime to succeed, it needs a better kind of women to characterize it. And this is what the Meiji intended. The earlier reign, the Tokugawa period had failed due to infiltration of 'evil' women into its structure. The Meiji, a new, enlightened regime, would ensure that such would not be the same with their dynasty. The subsystem of 'evil woman' would be eliminated, and an ideal polity could thus be manifested.

To these ends, Mutsuhito's empress was popularized as someone who did 'not poke her beak (kuchibashi) into matters of government', and the early Meiji regime actually promoted itself to ensuring that the power of the 'hens' would be suppressed in the country as a whole. The empress, herself, launched programs for the 'education of women' and 'womanly cultivation' in which the image of the 'good wife and mother' was promoted.

The book, the Onna Kagami Hidensho (a Mirror of Womanhood: the Book of Transmissions), interlaced with Confucian sayings and narratives, presented the 'wives and daughters of daimyo and noble houses' with a detailed description of comportment structured for the 'gentler' woman intent on 'winning her lord's heart'. Confucianism also introduced a ritual of primogeniture within the Meiji regime that in effect stated that "within family the male head stood supreme, and males stood far above females." 7

Usesugi Yozan, student of the Confucian scholar Hosoi Heishu, devoted himself early on to imparting Confucian 'lessons for women'. He taught that 'men are honorable whilst women are base' 8, and that a husband is "Heaven for his wife'.

Quoting the Zhan'ang poem from the Shijing (Book of Songs), he maintains that women should be of few words and should constrain herself to her domain. The lines he quotes are as follows:

A wise man builds up the wall

A wise woman tears it down.

Oh, that wise woman,

She is an owl, she is a shrike,

A woman with a long tongue,

Is but a stepping-stone to decline.

Disorder does not descend from Heaven,

It is the spawn of a woman. 10

Contemporaneous with relocating the capital from Edo to Tokyo was the drawing up of the 'Memorandum on Reform of the Imperial Palace' in which Article 1 states that the emperor would 'deign to hear about all political matters' in the front throne room adding that 'women are to be prohibited from entering the front throne room' 11.

Yoshii Tomozane, Senior Secretary for Court Affairs peremptorily dismissed all court ladies, after which a rare few were reselected for appointment. In his dairy, he noted: 'this morning, the court ladies were dismissed in their entirety… the power of women already lasting for centuries has been erased in a single day. My delight knows no bounds." 12.

In this way the power of the 'hens' was removed from the 'Enlightened regime' of Meiji rule and suppressed throughout the country. Acquiring and reinforcing the classical masculine stance from the West (as will be seen in the coming section), the Meiji male affirmed his masculinity in his treatment towards his wife and daughters -- in fact to all females in particular -- demoting them to an inferior position whilst he promoted himself as master of the 'Enlightened Nation'.

Part III. Western Influence

The Meiji period were differentially influenced by the West. On the one hand, there were those who perceived Japan as being effeminate in its dandy ways and the west as masculine in its logical and analytical mannerisms and endeavored to simulate the West. On the other hand, there were those who maintained that Japan, by imitating the West, was demeaning itself and ruining its tradition. They tried to rejuvenate their country by rearing a vigorous masculinity that rejected Western materialism and instead extolled sumarai-like notions such as those of physical courage, chivalry, and the national spirit. Either way, these two opposing representations of masculinity imbued the Meiji regime with a national identity that was articulated in the idiom of gender.

The Japanese Meiji gentleman -- shinshi derived from the Confucian context of shinshin, namely Confucian scholars who served as high-ranking officials in the Heian court - saw themselves, in the words of a contemporary, as "an educated man of high society in public service who dedicates himself to the service of the state."

Gentlemen in Meiji Japan received their advice on how to be gentlemen from the West. Yukichi's etiquette book introduced European and American clothing (including zangiri-atama, a short loose haircut which was considered the essence of Westernization), food, and furniture along with mannerisms to an eager Japanese public. This and similar etiquette books described all the necessary ways down to the smallest nuances appropriate for becoming a 'Western gentleman' 13. Victorian fashions and dictates clearly influenced the works. Meiji Japan was resolved to become as Western as rapidly and as fully as possible. Adler (2008) commented that:

Japan seems to be on the brink of being reduced to yet another helpless victim of Western industrialism, but at this point, a decisive difference emerged. Some of the deimyo and samurai faced the causes and consequences of Japanese impotence squarely: they decided to imitate the West as rapidly as possible

… One major reform after another came out of the imperial capital in Toyo (formerly Edo). All were modeled on the West… They systematically carried out reforms, even at the expense of cherished traditions. 14

Their objectives were to create fuou-hoyel, an influential powerful nation modeled after the West and inspired by the West, and they thought that by adopting Western appearances, they could convince the foreign powers that Japan, being just as civilized as they, should be respected and treated as equals (*).

To this end, Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901) foremost Japanese advocate of Westernization castigated the Japanese tendency to low self-confidence:

Those who haughtily ride about on horses or in carriages, scattering everyone in their way, are almost all Westerners. When they get into an argument with anyone & #8230; the Westerners behave insolently; they punch and kick at will…. Many [Japanese] simply swallow their anger and do not report such incidents. And even when there are grounds for litigation & #8230;people say to one another that, rather than press charges, it is better to swallow one's anger and be submissive. 15

To be a man, Yukichi argued, is to be Western. And to be Western, one has to imitate the West.

Other Japanese, however, mainly the university students, caricatured this tendency to ape the West. Caricatures in magazines depicted these government officials in all sorts of degenerated postures including that of aping monkeys, implying that they are denigrating not only themselves but also their nation in an attempt to simulate the other.

Other critics, such as Tani Kanjo, criticized officials for placing dance balls before military batteries. Modern Japanese officials, he maintained, had become 'effeminate.' All they did was ape the externals of the West in an attempt to become more masculine and thereby successful, but as Kanjo saw it, the West was making them more 'effeminate'. "Accommodation to the West suggested weakness and effeminacy" 16. They were losing their traditional strain of militarization whish was the true indicator of strength and masculinity.

Tokutomi, too, saw the "country gentleman' as becoming increasingly more "extravagant, self-indulgent, lewd, weak, and corrupt."17. He urged a spiritualized return to nationalism that would be centered on the "people" and "everyday life."

The soshi, the masculinized counterpart to the 'modernized effeminate gentleman' were characterized by their physical appearance and brazen attitude. In the words of one writer, "They were rough and unrefined, and walked around with their shoulders thrown back twirling a large club." 18. Long stitching on the crest of their kimono, and the thong on their clogs also marked their soshi virility, reinforced by defiant rips of their clothing, particularly their kimono, and tucking up their sleeves. Remarked Tokutomi: "When one witnesses their righteous indignation, dauntless integrity and bounteous patriotic spirit, and when one sees them tuck up their sleeves, proud of being Japanese men, they do not become extremely appealing." 19.

The soshi became notorious for their violence and aggression. A special office had to be established to handle their legal defense. Their main focus centered on the complaint that it was this, not the officials of court who represented authentic masculinity. The resulting feud between the competing versions of masculinity led one soshi to conclude, "Our country has become divided between gentleman and soshi." 20

Although the soshi culture gradually declined, its values and style -- and particularly its message -- left a lasting impact on Japanese culture, particularly on gender ideology. In fact, as De Vos and Wagatsuma (1961) concluded "The values of the old samurai [warriors; the soshi also became known as that]… were fostered by the government for the nation as a whole" (1205). What De Vos and Wagatsuma, presumably, imply here is that the government was attracted to other views on women and to their accentuation of the masculine rather than, of course, to their unconventional, anarchic disposition. However, it was not just the soshi's ideal of masculinity that affected the country. Both masculinities together, the official and the soshi, fused with the earlier-mentioned Confucian influences to wreak a toxic influence on their perceptions of gender and on the way that the Meiji male, generally, treated their women.

Part IV: Meiji Attitudes Towards Women

Nitobe (1908), when asked why Japan did not impart religious education in its schools, responded that it was Bushido that characterized Japanese moral education:

"Bu-shi-do_ means literally Military-Knight-Ways -- the ways which fighting nobles should observe in their daily life as well as in their vocation" (20).

His entire book proceeds to spell out this code at length, but, generally, Bushido can be understood as the elaborated code of the samurai revolving around masculine traits such as chivalry, courage, dignity, and honor. Bushido, as Ninomiya (1996) rightly noted is a "teaching primarily intended for the masculine sex" (p.6).

The Meiji Empire reintroduced the values of the old samurai, and they infiltrated the country from the top down. It was not only the government that exemplified these values, but farmer, merchant and craftsmen did too by resurrecting feudal samurai customs and values. "Modernization," wrote Kazuko (1977, p.2), "entailed samuraization of all the people of Japan." The exemplary Japanese woman (and hopefully mother) in the Meiji period represented the ideal of ryosai kenbo, i.e. good wife, wise mother. It was affirmed that maintenance to traditional roles would safeguard this Empire of Enlightenment, whereas focus on individualism, particularly feminist individualism, would destruct it 19. It was towards this end that the old custom of primogeniture (inheritance passing down to son in patriarchal fashion) was rejuvenated and codified, and the Meiji government stated that the needs of the "house [were to be placed] before individual needs" 20. In the ascending scale of service stood woman, who annihilated herself for man, that he might annihilate himself for the master, that he, in turn, might obey heaven. The twofold requirements of duty and piety, rather than love and affection, were to guide and bind man to wife (and vice versa) and women to children (and vice versa), and a Japanese woman was, over and again, reminded to obey first her father, then her husband, and later her son 21. The educational system, as was stated, offered education to Meiji women, but their intent was absolute: it was to train young women to be "good Meiji women."

The accomplishments of our women were not acquired for show or social ascendancy. They were a home diversion; and if they shone in social parties, it was as the attributes of a hostess -in other words, as a part of the household contrivance for hospitality. Domesticity guided their education. It may be said that the accomplishments of the women of Old Japan, be they martial or pacific in character, were mainly intended for the home; and, however far they might roam, they never lost sight of the hearth as the center. It was to maintain its honor and integrity that they slaved, drudged and gave up their lives. Night and day, in tones at once firm and tender, brave and plaintive, they sang to their little nests. As daughter, woman sacrificed herself for her father, as wife for her husband, and as mother for her son. Thus from earliest youth she was taught to deny herself. Her life was not one of independence, but of dependent service. Man's helpmeet, if her presence is helpful she stays on the stage with him: if it hinders his work, she retires behind the curtain. 21

With the Meiji Restoration, increasingly more men worked in white-collar jobs; many were employed in business firms and in government offices, whilst women continued to represent the unskilled labor force. In fact, Hasting's (2007) analysis of the era is that the leaders of the Meiji regime "deliberately inculcated an anti-female masculinity that eschewed anything effeminate." (374). By the late Meiji period, the Japanese state had formally excluded women from attending any political meetings and had affirmed that their contribution to society lay exclusively in the fact that they should be "good wives and wise mothers." All aspects of women down to details of their dress and nuances of social events that they were permitted to attend and in particular capacities were all scrupulously delineated and became part of the national identity22.