Social Norms versus Individual Desire: Conventions and Unconventionality in the History of Hirata Atsutane’s Family
Anne Walthall
Chapter from the book: Berry M. & Yonemoto M. 2019. What Is a Family?: Answers from Early Modern Japan.
Part of
Chapter from the book: Berry M. & Yonemoto M. 2019. What Is a Family?: Answers from Early Modern Japan.
Within the confines of the early modern corporate family, individuals made their way as best they could. Drawing on the voluminous records left by Hirata Atsutane and his descendants, this chapter shows how the relations between husband and wife might be constructed out of love as much as duty, how the Hirata family expanded and contracted through adopting children and adults as temporary members, and how servants male and female might become quasi-family. Since this was a scholarly house, its vicissitudes in finding suitable heirs lent a special flavor to the reproduction imperative.
Walthall, A. 2019. Social Norms versus Individual Desire: Conventions and Unconventionality in the History of Hirata Atsutane’s Family. In: Berry M. & Yonemoto M (eds.), What Is a Family?. California: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.77.i
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Published on Sept. 17, 2019