Page 79 - CONFERENCE BOOK OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GENDER, CULTURE AND SOCIETY (ICGCS) 2021

CONFERENCE PROGRAM AND ICGCS 2021

ABSTRACT BOOK

Gender, Language and Literature

Unmarried Women and Illegitimate Children in The

Ogawa Yoko’s Novels

Rima Devi
Universitas Andalas

Unmarried Japanese women but has children are critical issues nowadays. Based on a

report from the Ministry of Population and Welfare of Japan, the number of single mothers

has continued to increase in Japan in the last 30 years. The cause of being a single mother is

their spouse dies or divorces, but some women become single mothers because they give

birth to children out of wedlock. In Japan, if women gave birth to children out of wedlock,

they do not get any rights from the men who impregnate them, as well as children do not

get financial support and inheritance rights from their biological fathers. However, there are
illegitimate children in Japanese society because the biological father does not legally

recognize the child and does not register his marriage with the woman he impregnated

with the state.

Ogawa Yoko, a female Japanese writer, told of the single mother's life and her children who

do not get legal recognition in her novels. Ogawa Yoko describes the character of the

mother who gives birth to children out of wedlock with difficulty working and at the same

time raising her children alone without any support from anyone. With a minimal income,

this single mother tries to provide for her children's basic needs. The mother often neglects

their children's health and education because she cannot accommodate it. Ogawa Yoko

depicts that the single mother resigned to her fate without any attempt to get support from

either the man making her pregnant, the family, or the state. For a woman who gave birth
to a child out of wedlock, getting support from the children's biological father is not easy,

especially if the man is already married and registered the marriage at the municipal office.

The Japan Civil Code recognizes monogamous marriage, and polygamy is considered a

crime. Japanese women who are pregnant out of wedlock do not get support from their

own families because what they have done is their responsibility, making it difficult to ask

for support from their families, especially if the family does not care and considers the

presence of children outside of marriage to only add to the burden. Japan's Government

does not support pregnant women out of wedlock, with a civil code that stipulates that

children born out of wedlock are the full responsibility of the mother who gave birth to
them.

This study aims to examine how the attitudes and actions taken by women who gave birth
to children out of wedlock in Japan and their children's condition. The research objects are

two novels written by Ogawa Yoko, namely Hakase No Aishita Sûshiki (2003) and Kohaku

No Matataki (2015). Both novels have a publishing span of more than ten years, but both

depict the life of a single mother in Japan. This research is qualitative research with a

sociological approach to literature using family concepts. The research method is a coding

method by tagging data in words, sentences, or paragraphs related to families and

institutions, then categorizing and analyzing the data. The results show that patriarchal

power and control in Japan are still ongoing, silencing marginalized women such as

pregnant women out of wedlock and eliminating the rights of illegitimate children.

Keywords: Gender, Japanese Family, Japanese Literature, and Patriarchy

Short Biography:

Rima Devi is Assistant Professor at the Japanese Department, Faculty of Humanities Universitas Andalas.

She completed her graduate studies (doctoral) at the Literature Program, Faculty of Humanities
Universitas Indonesia in 2015. Her research focuses on family and family change in literature. She
published a book entitles ‘Keluarga Interdependen Dalam Karya Ogawa Yoko’ in 2017.

78

h t t p : / / i c g c s . c o n f e r e n c e . u n a n d . a c . i d /