The Modern Family in Japan

This award-winning book brings together Chizuko Ueno's groundbreaking essays on the rise and fall of the modern family in Japan. Combining historical sociological anthropological and journalistic methodologies Ueno - who is arguably the foremost feminist theoretician in Japan - delineates in vivid detail how the family has been changing in form and function in the last hundred years. In each chapter Ueno introduces the reader to a different facet of modern Japanese family life ranging from children who fantasize about being orphans to the elderly who confront 'pre-senescence.' The central focus is on the housewife - her history her ever-changing responsibilities her ways of surviving mid-life crisis. This is an indispensable book for students and scholars seeking to understand modern Japan.