Yasukuni Mothers and Yasukuni Wives

During the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945), the Japanese government propagated the belief that dying at war was the greatest honor a Japanese man could ever achieve. All military dead were to be enshrined as a god at Yasukuni Shrine, a national military memorial associated with the imperial family. For women, the greatest contribution was to produce and raise men who would ultimately become a god of Yasukuni. Women who lost their sons and husbands were referred to as “Yasukuni Mothers” and “Yasukuni Wives” respectively, allowing them to be associated with the honored institution, but with the implication that the shrine had replaced the men in their lives.

This paper will demonstrate that through Yasukuni Shrine, grief over war death was to be transformed into pride and gratitude, elevating and highlighting grieving women in ways that allowed them to obtain a social standing that was otherwise not available to them. Production of male offspring, even with the knowledge that they will have a high probability of military death, allowed Japanese women to improve their status in a patriarchal society in which they lacked most citizenship rights.