An Investigation of the Changing Social Consciousness with Regard to Ishikikaii (Breach of Etiquette) in Early Meiji Japan

Humor and Submission

Abstract

This paper explores the collective mentality and the formation of the nation state in the early Meiji Era in Japan. The empirical focus of this paper is Ishikikaii, an ordinance concerned with the breach of etiquette, which brought about the modernization of the concept of the body in Japan. By prohibiting casual nudity, which characterized the public mores of the time, Ishikikaii aimed to make Japanese public behavior conform to the Western standards of propriety. To enforce Ishikikaii, the police were directed to interdict those who walked nude on the streets. However, public nudity was rather natural for the Japanese who lived in that era. Women took off their blouses to nurse their babies, workers labored wearing only fundoshi (loincloths), and people returned home from public baths in various states of undress. Therefore, it can be easily imagined that the new law must have caused a great deal of confusion.
To determine the reactions of the people in Osaka toward the enforcement of Ishikikaii, I collected and analyzed newspaper articles that were published at the time of its promulgation. Based on this data, the following are my interpretations of the social consciousness of the people in the early Meiji Era : (1) there were many humorous articles written on public arrests and (2) these articles consisted of humorous phrases, which applied to both people and statesmen. It is able to read, humor is the way of “passing” for those who were confused with regard to modernization and westernization.