by Yoshiaki Sanada

The "breakdown of the family," about which so much is heard these days, is not a phenomenon unique to Japan; neither is it a phenomenon peculiar to our own time.

Recently much has been heard in Japan about "the breakdown of the family" or "the endangered family." Men and women choosing to remain single, couples marrying later in life and some of them remaining childless, instances of child abuse and abandonment and domestic violence, the transformation of homes for the aged into mere holding tanks for unwanted parents, and even murders among blood relations--parents killing their children, children killing their parents, sisters and brothers killing each other--the newspapers, television, and other media prominently feature such trends and events, which seem symptomatic of a slide by the Japanese family toward a state of complete collapse. Or should these symptoms be seen as "birth pangs" attending the emergence of a new type of family?

Emancipation of the Individual

The "breakdown of the family" is not necessarily a phenomenon unique to Japan; neither is it peculiar to our own time. Already in the middle of the eighteenth century, there was talk of "the breakup of the community" or "the emancipation of the individual from the community." The individual, progress, reason, and liberty were key philosophical concepts of the time.

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), the influential writer and philosopher of the French Enlightenment, held that because all people were born free and equal, the only condition under which they should transfer their freedom to another should be for their own profit. Thus, as no person is born with inherent authority over others, mutual agreement is the only proper basis for a relationship of authority of one over another.

According to Rousseau, the highest absolute form of existence for all human beings is the individual in a constant state of total freedom and equality. For such individuals, the foundation for dealing with one another in a social context should be agreement among all the individuals concerned, that is, on a contractual basis. This worldview leads inevitably to a logical conclusion that there remains only one possible type of human bond between individuals and society: ownership and contracts premised on a state of free competition.

Sir Henry Maine, an English jurist and legal historian of the mid-nineteenth century, succinctly described the historical transition from the Middle Ages to modern times with the slogan "From Status to Contract." He characterized what he saw as the modern trend to be a gradual dissolution of dependence on the family, superseded by the growth of individual responsibility. He pointed out a sure but steady replacement of the family by the individual and the formation of interpersonal relationships on a contract basis.

The Principle of Contractual Freedom

Families come into being with the union of a man as husband and a woman as his wife. It goes without saying that such a union should be based on an agreement entered into with the free will of both parties. Thus, under the law in most countries, marriage is a contract involving a relationship of status.

The legal basis for contracts is the principle of contractual freedom. This means that the choice of parties to the contract and its content, aims, and conditions are based on the free will of the parties as long as these do not go against the public order and accepted standards of decency. As marriage is also a contract, the principle of contractual freedom also applies. In a marriage contract, the choice of spouse and conditions of the marriage--for example, whether it is cohabitation for reasons merely of economic profit, whether there is an intention to have children or not, whether the parties will live together or apart for stipulated periods, and so on--are entirely up to the parties as long as these factors do not go against the public order and standards of decency.

However, the principle of contractual freedom, which is founded on the assumption of the individual as an absolute entity with freedom and rights, carries within it a hidden danger that inevitably promotes the collapse of the community we call the family. The dissolution of the family we see in our present era is deeply rooted in our absolutely unshakable faith in the modern perception of the individual as the highest absolute existence, as well as in the formerly held assumption that progress in society and personal growth in the individual inevitably require freedom and rights, which are also the foundation on which contractual systems have been built. For people today, however, such freedom and contractual systems may have lost their former promise and power to promote creative emancipation; it is clear that many people now regard them as dangerous forces that promote insecurity, forced self-reliance, estrangement, division, and confusion.

Restoring the Family as a Community

The English word community comes from the Latin word commune. Commune is a compound of com, meaning "together" or "with," and munus, which embraces the concepts of duty, responsibility, courtesy, and gift giving. If we interpret community in light of the original Latin, we can say that a community is a place where moral-spiritual bonds are strong and we as members mutually fulfill our own duties and responsibilities, treat one another with courtesy, and give one another gifts that can be either material or moral/ spiritual in nature.

What we are now searching for is how to restore the family as a community in this sense. In the process of this search, we need to ask ourselves the following questions: What is a husband as an individual, what is a wife as an individual, what is a father as an individual, and what is a mother as an individual? And exactly what, in the first place, is an individual?

And what is the bond that forms when an individual man and an individual woman become a married couple, and what is the community of marriage that arises from this bond? Also, what is the bond of parent and offspring that forms when a child is born, and what is the community of parent and child that arises from that bond? And finally, what is the community of family that is created through the horizontal relationship of a married couple combined with the vertical relationship of parent and child?

The Concept of "Me"

One of the Japanese words for the English word me is jibun. It is composed of two kanji characters, ji, which means an independent entity, and bun, which refers to one part of a whole divided into pieces. The kanji characters making up jibun indicate that the independent, unique entity "me" also inevitably exists in common with other independent "me" entities, which are parts that together make up a single, integrated whole. The Asian mind does not easily grasp the concept of the individual as the unlimited, absolute highest existence. Individuals are not understood dualistically as "me and you" but monistically as "my you and your me" or "you as you are to me and me as I am to you."

It is reported that the number of cells that make up a human being total some sixty trillion. It is not within the power of a human being to independently create even a single cell. All of them come down to us from our uncountable generations of ancestors and from the uncountable multitude of all living things. The air essential for us to live was not created by us: oxygen is created by green plants. From an ecological point of view, humans are a kind of parasite living off green plants.

In order to maintain life, every day we consume food derived from plants, animals, fish, and so on; this means that we kill other living things in order to sustain our lives. Thus, for us to be alive means that we are taking lives. In the contexts of both time and space, we continue to take the lives of others, and through such sacrifices we live by being forgiven for our lives. At root, humans are beings that can survive only in a context of relationships with others in which we are being forgiven, being given life as we live, experiencing sacrifices as well as acts of sharing, compassion, and mutual respect. In this context, we must fulfill the duties and responsibilities we incur by living and being given life through a deep appreciation for the others that give us life, even to the point of giving up their own lives.

Restoring a More Natural State

No matter what form families take in the future, as long as they are unions of individuals, restoring the family must start with "human restoration"--the return of individuals to a more natural state--as it is the union of a husband as an individual and a wife as an individual that provides the basis for the existence of a family. We need to take a long hard look at the practical reality of the fact that, whether we want to admit it or not, no matter who we are, we are being forgiven and given life so that we can continue to live. When we recognize this as a fact, we will realize that freedom and responsibility and rights and duties are actually two sides of the same coin.

The inevitable, logical conclusion inherent in the recognition that humans are beings that can live only in a context of mutually dependent relationships is that we have a responsibility to work together and to treat one another with respect, appreciation, and compassion, overcoming differences in age, sex, race, language, culture, nationality, and so on. These natural responsibilities of human beings are an expression of the true meaning of the Japanese word jibun, and we now need a practical morality for implementing this concept within the modern family.