Research On The Japanese Family Precepts Thoughts

Family precept is the carrier of ethics and behavioral norms who regard home as the basic social unit. The content of family precepts directly reflects the people’s outlook on life and value at all levels. By studying on the Japanese family precepts, not only can we observe the inner world of the Japanese, but only can understand the evolution process of the concept, policies and system from managing a household to ruling a country.Japanese traditional family precept is the product of the social development of Japan. It is the reflection of the traditional social ideology on the field of family and family ties. In the undeveloped ancient society, most people had to preserve ideology, morality and cultural knowledge by the summary of family precepts, from which we can see the dominant influence of family precepts in Japanese society. From the analysis of the origin, development and content of the family precepts, we can easily find that the special family system and ethical thoughts make Japanese family precepts have a suitable peculiarity itself. Under the influence of Chinese precepts, a lot of Japanese family precepts contain the thoughts of Confucianism. However, differing from the Chinese ones, each class of Japanese has its own precepts. Moreover, in order to continue the family property, the contents pay more attention to the practical operability but ignoring the theme and form.Firstly, a brief introduction about Japanese family and its ethical thoughts has been made which mainly including Japanese views on kinship, gender, loyalty and filial piety and inheritance. Based on that, this paper summarizes the characteristics of Japanese family and its ethical thoughts which reveals the estate centered family community thought, weight vertical and light parallel home system thought and simulate the blood system thought and simulate the blood relationship thought.Secondly, the Japanese family precepts of all class are analyzed. Based on the exploration of the formation and development of the family precepts in each class, some prominent characteristics have been found. The characteristics of the public precepts:with small quantity and simple content, and a system is not formed and greatly influenced by China. The characteristics of the warrior precepts: loyalty is the highest with strong consciousness; Force has become the foundation of himself; Family harmony and country management are both important; The article style is simple and random. The characteristics of the business family precepts:the continuity of their families’possessions is the most important; Pay attention to the pragmatism; Attach important to frugality in household management. The characteristics of the peasant family precepts:with small quantity; Focus on agricultural technology. The characteristics of the instructs for women family precepts:the content is different in different class; Deeply effected by Chinese family precepts of women.Thirdly, the similarities and differences of the family precepts in each class in Japan are summarized. On the one hand, "loyal", "filial piety" and "harmonious" are in common. On the other hand, as the representative of the differences, a contrastive analysis on warrior precepts and business family precepts has been made.Fourthly, based on the analysis and comparison above, the characteristics of the Japanese family precepts and its influence to the culture are summarized. The Japanese family precepts is deeply influenced by Confucianism with obvious class nature and strong operability. The influence of Japanese family precepts included:the expectation of descendant, the promote of social morality and the great progress as a culture in the modern times.Finally, a conclusion about the main contents of the whole paper is made.