Making Village Women into "Good Wives and Wise Mothers" in Prewar Japan

Abstract

Among the many programs undertaken by the Japanese government between 1868 and 1945 was one designed to make of Japanese women "good wives and wise mothers. " The principal vehicle used in the effort to produce paragons of domestic virtue was the school system. The field materials collected in the mid- 1930s by Ella Lury Wiswell in the agricultural community of Suye-mura include excellent firsthand information on the degree to which the policy was effective, particularly with respect to reducing the incidence of premarital. sexual activity, premarital pregnancy, and divorce.