The Transformation of Love in Modern Japan I

Abstract

In sociology, many studies have pointed out that the combination of marriage with love had not been established until the modern era. The purpose of this paper focusing solely on Japan is to clarify the essence of the transformation of love that is conjectured from the fact that the Japanese word “ren-ai” means approximately the same thing as the English “love” or the French word amour. Furthermore, ren-ai has been prominent use in Japan since the Meiji period. Through an analysis of ‘love, ’ I want to provide and to show the grounds for an argument that understanding historical change in a specific mode of communication is one way to make clear endemic elements of “modernity. ”