農村におけるアジア系外国人妻の生活と居住意識

山形県最上地方の中国・台湾、韓国、フィリピン出身者を対象にして

抄録

This paper is a report of a survey conducted in their own native languages on the consciousness and reality of foreign 'brides' from Asia in Japanese rural areas. The subjects of this survey were 154 foreign 'brides' from China/Taiwan, Korea and Philippines who are married to Japanese men and registered residents of Mogami district, Yamagata Prefecture (eight cities and villages).
This survey revealed the following : (1) The gap between the ideal and reality in various aspects of life in Japan is great. (2) A large proportion of them decided to marry after being persuaded by sweet talking “international marriage” agents. (3) large problems exist in communication in Japanese. (4) There are large differences between tradition, culture and value systems of their native countries and Japan. (5) The common family structure was a lineal extended family in which the brides live with their husbands' parents. (6) The ratio of the families in which finances are controlled by the mother-in-law is high, hence the brides feel that they are deprived of their role as wives and mothers. (7) In many cases, wives are forced to assimilate as Japanese within their families. (8) Marriages are perceived as marriages of convenience for the purpose of maintenance and continuation of the 'ie' or the family lineage. (9) they strongly feel that discrimination and prejudice against non Japanese Asians still persist in local Japanese communities. (10) The legal, institutional and spiritual environment is still not adequate for accepting foreign 'brides'.