Paper short abstract:

This paper uses literary writings to deconstruct the representation of western style education for jogakusei (school girls) in the milieu of the traditional adoption system. It shows how the Meiji legal system coerced jogakusei to ironically perform traditional norms in face of new social desires.

Paper long abstract:

In the latter half of 19th century, Japanese intelligentsia drafted a centralized and modern law, which largely contributed in the establishing a modern nation-state, to serve and represent its civilians equally. This paper will deconstruct the writings of Meiji writers to examine the effect imparted when common citizen faced civil codes, particularly the adoption law, which presents an "alternative" understanding of the family and social structure in Meiji Japan, deemed quintessential for building a nation-state. While the adoption system was continued to be practiced almost unchanged, several amendments were made and enforced in civil codes from time to time to ensure the safeguarding of family structure, well suited to the process of standardization of traditional family structure, but the updated civil codes were clearly incapable in representing and protecting the rights of the jogakusei who were subjects of the newly introduced western education system.

This paper will closely read the works of Miyake Kaho, who inspired Higuchi Ichiyo to become a professional author, and the works of Higuchi also to analyze the course of depiction of jogakusei in relation to the Meiji adoption system. With the comparison of the works of these two writers, this paper explains the double bind of Meiji society and its gendered legal codes placed on the new emerging class of jogakusei who ironically perform traditional norms in face of new social desires.