This paper examines the family theories of political scientist Masao Maruyama and his disciples to explore their applicability to contemporary family studies. Unlike the commonly held idea of Maruyama as a political scientist whose main focus is the “public,” Maruyama et al. positively discussed the private sphere, or “family.”
This paper posits that Maruyama’s interest in the “family” and private sphere stems from his view that prewar Japanese fascism was characterized by a lack of separation between “public” and “private” and the connection of various intermediate groups with the state. The paper also proposes Maruyama et al.’s postwar references to the “family” redefined these “public” and “private” issues and reexamined the relationship between the individual, intermediate groups, and the state. The research subjects of this paper include the study of Japanese fascism in the early postwar period, the debate on “my-home-ism” during the period of rapid economic growth, and the acceptance of gender theories in the 1990s.
In the concluding section, I attempt to connect Maruyama et al.’s concerns with “compressed modernity” and masculinity studies.

特集 : 岡原正幸君・岡田あおい君・三尾裕子君退職記念号