Household Duties
The ie is often defined by the gendered roles within a family. These roles are most often exemplified by the household duties that each family member is expected to uphold. Until recently, wives took on the duties of cooking, cleaning, and raising the children, while the typical husband served as a salary man and earned the income for the family. While this familial structure is still in place, it is changing as more and more women join the workforce. Among the lower class society, a rising number of women are achieving economic independence and good career prospects leading to a shift in the typical patriarchic society. Today, the Japanese government has encouraged working fathers to become Iku-men (or stay-at-home fathers), and in 1992, the Japanese government passed a law that allowed for time off for both the mother and the father of a newborn child.
Read more about this topic: Ie (Japanese Family System)
Famous quotes containing the words household and/or duties:
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“... the prevalent custom of educating young women only for marriage, and not for the duties and responsibilities consequent on marriage—only for appendages and dead weights to husbands—of bringing them up without an occupation, profession, or employment, and thus leaving them dependent on anyone but themselves—is an enormous evil, and an unpardonable sin.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)