Some Social Characteristics of a Seicho-no-Ie Congregation in Southern Japan1

Abstract

Seichō-no-Ie members in northern Nagasaki prefecture tend to be elderly persons who are either engaged in or associated with family operated enterprises. And many members were, indeed, attracted to Scichō-no-Ie initially because of their desire to resolve particular domestic difficulties which Seichō-no-Ie claims to be able to treat. The sex ratio of membership was approximately two male members for every three female members, though males tend to dominate local Seichō-no-Ie administrative and political activities. The members tend not to be highly mobile and as a consequence the effects of social and economic dislocation do not appear to be important factors affecting membership. Characteristically, Seichō-no-Ie members are not poor. The expenses entailed in active membership are considerable. However, this does not mean that Seichō-no-Ie members rest easy with regard to their economic futures. As small businessmen or independent farmers they feel particularly exposed and unprotected in the face of changing social and economic conditions-conditions over which they have little control. They attempt to exercise some control over these conditions through Seichō-no-Ie educational and political activities which recreate modern Japan in the image of the prewar past. Seichōno-Ie members support the traditional values associated with the family system, namely, those of loyalty, duty, and selflessness. They wish to restore the Meiji constitution and to return sovereignty to the Emperor. Seichō-no-Ie members enjoy and practice Japanese arts and view themselves vis-a-vis others as true Japanese who have retained the true spirit of Japan. They appear to be, largely, members of the old-middle-class who actively support and who desire to maintain and propagate prewar familialistic Japanese culture. Caudill has noted that the old-middle-class, the more traditional sector of Japanese society, is culturally and politically distinctive.1 He pointed out that as of 1962 more than half of all Japanese families derived their incomes or a major portion of them through family enterprises. The other half was dependent upon wages and salaries of family members employed by large companies or other large institutions. He argued that this "dual structure" constituted two life styles each having its own pattern of emotional problems. And in the conclusion to his study concerned with the implications of this dual structure on the differential incidence of mental illness, he reported the following: These results indicate that interpersonal relations centering around the roles of eldest son and youngest daughter are more productive of serious psychological problems in the traditional type of Japanese family than in the modern types of family where the husband's or father's occupational life lies largely outside of the sphere of family influence. In the world of today, the way of life of the "salaryman" is in the ascendancy, and has already become alienated from that still substantial proportion of urban people who are small shopkeepers and craftsmen. It may be that the results presented here are, in a broad sense, a consequence of the increasing tension felt within families dependent on their own resources as their way of life becomes more separate, and as they are forced to live in an atmosphere of decay in traditional social and economic relationships.1 This statement summarizes the situation faced by many Seichō-no-Ie members. Maruyama in his study of Japanese fascism makes reference to a social division comparable to that of the dual structure by noting ideological differences between two major social categories defined in terms of occupation. The members of one of these he called pseudo-intellectuals. These persons, he pointed out, were "small-factory owners, building contractors, independent farmers, school teachers (especially in primary schools), employees of village offices, low-grade officials, Buddhist and Shinto priests."2 According to Maruyama's analysis, persons having these occupations were the most ardent supporters of Japanese fascism. "Urban salaried employees, so-called men of culture, journalists, men in occupations demanding higher knowledge such as professors and lawyers, and university and college students" were the intellectuals who, on the other hand, did not support fascism. According to Maruyama, prewar nationalism, the nationalism of the pseudo-intellectuals, was grounded in the Japanese family system. The second World War destroyed ultranationalism as it was expressed in a centralized Japanese military government ; the occupation changed the civil code which supported the family system. But Maruyama argues that nationalistic sentiment still exists but in a latent state. Seichō-no-Ie, it is suggested, is giving this latent state a more manifest expression as can be seen by its social doctrine, its political activities, and its educational policy all of which support efforts to rebuild Japan on the prewar familialistic model. To nonmembers for whom family tensions may not be as great, such expression possibly serves no need.