Gender and Law in the Japanese Imperium

Gender and Law in the Japanese Imperium

With contributions by: Douglas R. Howland, Harald Fuess, Sally Hastings, Daniel Botsman, Darryl Flaherty, Chao-ju Chen and Motokazu Matsutani
Edited by: Susan L. Burns and Barbara J. Brooks

University of Hawaii Press | 2013

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824839192

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About this book

Beginning in the nineteenth century, law as practice, discourse, and ideology became a powerful means of reordering gender relations in modern nation-states and their colonies around the world. This volume puts developments in Japan and its empire in dialogue with this global phenomenon. Arguing against the popular stereotype of Japan as a non-litigious society, an international group of contributors from Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and the U.S., explores how in Japan and its colonies, as elsewhere in the modern world, law became a fundamental means of creating and regulating gendered subjects and social norms in the period from the 1870s to the 1950s. Rather than viewing legal discourse and the courts merely as technologies of state control, the authors suggest that they were subject to negotiation, interpretation, and contestation at every level of their formulation and deployment. With this as a shared starting point, they explore key issues such reproductive and human rights, sexuality, prostitution, gender and criminality, and the formation of the modern conceptions of family and conjugality, and use these issues to complicate our understanding of the impact of civil, criminal, and administrative laws upon the lives of both Japanese citizens and colonial subjects. The result is a powerful rethinking of not only gender and law, but also the relationships between the state and civil society, the metropole and the colonies, and Japan and the West.

Collectively, the essays offer a new framework for the history of gender in modern Japan and revise our understanding of both law and gender in an era shaped by modernization, nation and empire-building, war, occupation, and decolonization. With its broad chronological time span and compelling and yet accessible writing, Gender and Law in the Japanese Imperium will be a powerful addition to any course on modern Japanese history and of interest to readers concerned with gender, society, and law in other parts of the world.

Contributors: Barbara J. Brooks, Daniel Botsman, Susan L. Burns, Chen Chao-Ju, Darryl Flaherty, Harald Fuess, Sally A. Hastings, Douglas Howland, Matsutani Motokazu.

Author information

BurnsSusan L.:

Susan L. Burns is professor of Japanese history and East Asian languages and civilizations at the University of Chicago.

Reviews

The editors of this thought-provoking collection note the increased interest among academics in legal history and its implications for understanding the modernizing and colonizing world of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . . This well-written and coherent collection of essays will intrigue undergraduate and graduate students interested in Japanese history, gender studies, or law and is sure to inspire additional research.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
Acknowledgments Free access PDF PDF	vii
Note on East Asian Names and Terms Free access PDF PDF	ix
Introduction Susan Burns Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
Part I. Prostitution, Law, and Human Rights
Chapter 1. The Maria Luz Incident Personal Rights and International Justice for Chinese Coolies and Japanese Prostitutes Douglas Howland Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	21
Chapter 2. Disputing Rights The Debate over Anti-Prostitution Legislation in 1950s Japan Sally Hastings Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	48
Part II. Crime, Punishment, and Gender
Chapter 3. Gender in the Arena of the Courts The Prosecution of Abortion and Infanticide in Early Meiji Japan Susan Burns Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	81
Chapter 4. Adultery and Gender Equality in Modern Japan, 1868–1948 Harald Fuess Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	109
Chapter 5. Of Pity and Poison Imprisoning Women in Modern Japan Daniel Botsman Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	136
Chapter 6. Burning Down the House Gender and Jury in a Tokyo Courtroom, 1928 Darryl Flaherty Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	159
Part III. Colonial Law and the Problem of the Family
Chapter 7. Sim-pua under the Colonial Gaze Gender, “Old Customs,” and the Law in Taiwan under Japanese Imperialism Chen Chao-ju Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	189
Chapter 8. Japanese Colonialism, Gender, and Household Registration: Legal Reconstruction of Boundaries Barbara Brooks Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	219
Chapter 9. A New Perspective on the “Name-Changing Policy” in Korea Matsutani Motokazu Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	240
Bibliography Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	267
Contributors Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	291
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	295

Gender and Law in the Japanese Imperium

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