2018 Volume 67 Pages 1-51,en3
From the Taisho period through to the early Showa period, a variety of new paradigms came to the forefront in the legal science. One of these was the concept of social jurisprudence (Shakaigakuteki horitsugaku), which has greatly influenced the methodologies in modern jurisprudence. A key figure behind this concept was Shigeto Hozumi, an expert in Family Law and a professor in the Faculty of Law at Tokyo Imperial University. He was also a member of the committee aimed at amending the Civil Code (Rinji hosei shingikai), and involved in a variety of other social welfare projects. In order to understand him, it is necessary to look at more than just his publications and strive to also take into account both his legislative and his social welfare activities. It is also necessary to examine the kinds of people with whom he worked. Only by gathering and synthesizing this information is one able to understand what he actually thought.
Based on the aforementioned assumptions, this paper focuses on Hozumi 's activities in establishing the Child Abuse Prevention Act of 1933. The start point of his activities was a contact with a famous social welfare worker by the name of Taneaki Hara. As Hara was an acquaintance of Hozumi 's father, Hozumi had known him since childhood, and this contact lead to Hozumi 's interest in social welfare projects. Due to his interest, Hozumi cooperated with Hara in creating the Child Abuse Prevention Act. He later took over a part of Hara's duties and even participated in creating drafts used in the process of establishing the act.
Hozumi 's particularly important contribution in this work was the creation of a new theory of parental authority. An essential aspect in preventing child abuse is restricting parental authority, but at the time, it was questioned whether or not it would be possible to enact these types of restrictions through legislation. In order to dispel this doubt and enact a restriction on parental authority for the benefit of children Hozumi had to create a new theory of parental authority. His theory stipulated that parents shall bear an obligation to the nation to raise children properly, and at first glance, this theory appears conservative and designed to uphold Japan's traditional family system. However, when taking into account all of Hozumi 's activities leading up to the creation of his theory, it could be considered to have been designed in order to incrementally improve the environments in which children live. As can be seen through this example, understanding Shigeto Hozumi requires assessing his theories not just through his publications but also within the context of all of his activities.
