Abstract
This paper aims at clarifying the urban public mentality toward “Ie” in the middle of the early modern period. Specifically, it analyzes 11 plays of the sewa-mono type written by popularly supported dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon treating incidents that actually occurred at that time.
It is common in all the stories for the male protagonists to be married into their wife's family as an essential element for the story's continuation. Conflicted over the family structure, these male characters develop a self-denying attitude. The representation analysis of the Chikamatsu episodes given here illuminates the complexity of the popular mentality toward Ie organization, which cannot be simply characterized as either a positive or a negative feeling in a dualistic sense.
