Paper short abstract:

The Meiji legal system excluded women from public roles. Challenging the conventional view that the institution of the family (ie) was responsible, my aim is to demonstrate the power of masculine networks in the construction of the new legal order and of citizenship in modern Japan.

Paper long abstract:

In pre-war Japan women were not citizens in the same way as men in the eyes of the state. When the new Meiji government consolidated the basic state structure in the late 19th century, Japanese women lost a significant number of political and legal rights: denial of voting rights at both local and national level, exclusion from newspaper operation, and disbarment from joining political organisations, as well as discriminatory criminal laws and 'incapability' clauses in the new civil code. Why does the Meiji legal system so emphatically exclude women from public roles?

The conventional view is that the institution of the family (ie) was responsible, underlain by the authority of the father. State ideologues also likened the Meiji State to the family and portrayed the emperor as the father figure of the nation. The undermining of women's status is therefore thought to be closely related to the consolidation of the patriarchal legal structure. What has not been sufficiently appreciated however is the power of masculine networks, reinforced by contact with Europe, in justifying the new state regulations and legal concepts. The patriarchy that underlines the Meiji legal system was not only paternal, but fraternal. This 'modern' patriarchy is often cloaked in the notion of the family, which makes it difficult to recognise how essential gender was to the formation of the new Japanese legal order. Using various legal documents, such as statutes, proceedings of meetings where these statutes were discussed, and relevant judicial interpretations, my aim is to supplement of the work of Marnie Anderson, Hayakawa Noriyo, Harald Fuess, and others, and demonstrate the power of gendered relationships in the construction of the new legal order and of citizenship in modern Japan.