By the way, isolated villages and closed societies in America and Europe somehow feel scarier than Japanese ones. In a way, Japan's world is one we also belong to, and we can intuitively understand that murky, muddy human emotion. But Western societies like that feel dry, truly inhumane, and terrifying. Perhaps it's because it's so far removed from the glamorous image of big cities we usually hear about. Places where "human emotion" itself doesn't seem to exist, almost as if straw dolls were living there.
Even within Japan's closed societies, there are plenty of old customs that are impossible to understand. One custom that terrified me and sent a chill down my spine is called "Ojiroku." It was a custom where only the eldest son was treated as a human being, while all the younger brothers and sisters were treated like slaves. They couldn't go to school, they couldn't play, and they weren't allowed to marry. They devoted their lives to the household like livestock. Even though they shared the same blood, everyone except the eldest son was treated as subhuman—by their own family. Even as a Japanese person, I can't understand this custom.
According to Renji Kondo's "Outsiders in Uncultured Societies," the Ojiroku and Obasa system existed in Tenryu Village, Shimoina District, Nagano Prefecture. From around the 16th to 17th century, only the eldest brother was allowed to marry and engage in social life. Meanwhile, the younger siblings were not allowed to marry unless they were adopted into or married into another family, interaction with the outside world was forbidden, and they were forced to work for the head of the household for life without pay. Furthermore, their status within the home was lower than the wife and children of the head, and it is said that "yakkai" (dependent/burden) was written in religious census registers and family registries. However, the photographs of the registers published in Mizuno's paper do not actually have "yakkai" written on them. As of 1872, the village population was about 2,000, and about 190 of them were Ojiroku and Obasa.
This is a story that was featured on the TV show "Kotaete Chodai!" A woman married the second son of a family somewhere and gave birth to a child. Her mother-in-law, who lived far away, helped her out with various things, and she was happy. At the time, she thought she had met a wonderful mother-in-law.
However, when she became pregnant with her second child, the mother-in-law's attitude abruptly changed and she demanded that she stop the pregnancy. There was an unspoken rule in her husband's hometown custom: a second son's family was not allowed to have more children than the eldest son's family. Her husband's older brother's family only had one child yet. Therefore, the mother-in-law insisted that her husband's family must not have a second child.
However, the woman wanted to have her baby and refused to have an abortion. One day, her condition worsened during her pregnancy. The doctor told her there was a possibility she might have a stillbirth. At that moment, she received another phone call from her mother-in-law telling her not to have the baby. She told her mother-in-law that the baby's condition was bad, holding a faint hope that the mother-in-law might change her mind. But the mother-in-law cheerfully blurted out, "Well, why don't you just scrape it right out along with it?" Shocked beyond belief, she ended up cutting ties with her mother-in-law.
It was terrifying how trying to protect a tradition could lead to telling someone to kill a child. I thought it was by far the most unsettling story ever featured on "Kotaete Chodai!"
That sounds like it might be from the same region mentioned earlier... Gives me the creeps.
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