The launch of the domestic discourse in Japan was fertilized by the exposure to the Victorian ‘cult of domesticity’, manifested by the sentimentalization of home life and the romanticization of motherly duties in British
and North American middle-class homes. This family morality that had
developed under the influence of industrial capitalism and Protestant
reform movements found no parallel in Japan. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the Anglo-American domestic ideal received the
increasing attention of Japanese social reformers and was widely featured
in the Japanese media. The neologism katei – a term that soon entered the
Japanese language as the equivalent of the English word ‘home’ – was
especially constructed in order to express the full meaning of the new
concept. Katei soon became a trendy word and a ‘katei’ column became a
standard component in popular mainstream magazines and newspapers. In
conjunction with katei, the phrase ikka danran (the family circle) became