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:
“Except that household virtue, most uncommon,
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)