Why did the civil code of Meiji Japan provide the same surname for couples? Westernization, de-Chineseization, and the construction of a national state

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article challenges the question of how and why ‘the compulsory same surname system for couples’ was written into the Meiji Civil Code. Administrative documents related to surnames issued by the Meiji government, documents of the Code Research Committee, and the stenographic records of the Diet deliberations allow us not only to know that the form of the compulsory same surname system for the Couple was influenced and justified by the norms of marriage in Western society, but also to unveil an invention of tradition. ‘the compulsory same surname system for couples’, a product of Westernization, was then combined with the Japanese traditional ‘ie’ system and successfully implemented as a new tradition that was created and established in a short period of time. This article concludes in the Meiji period, during the construction of the modern national state, when ‘the compulsory same surname system for couples’ broke the norm of the surname belonging to the upper class under the feudal era, while the sense of family unity it brought also served to unify the nation. And so, internally, this served to homogenize and unify the nation. Externally, Meiji leaders believed it would play a role in correcting the unequal treaties with the West and removing any perceived influence from Chinese civilization. Using this system of the compulsory same surname for couples as one of the means to build the identity of ‘modern Japan’, was the true intention of the Meiji government.