Family Livelihood, Social Class and Mothers’ Self-cognition: The Transformation of “Mothering” in Japanese Colonial Taiwan (1895–1945)

Based on oral histories and diaries of women who lived in the Japanese colonial period, this article analyzes the role and transformation of “mothering” in Taiwan, examining how the Han Chinese patriarchal society in Taiwan responded to colonialization and modernization in the early twentieth century. It reveals that most Taiwanese women at that time married in their teens and began to take on the tasks of mothers before the age of twenty. Difference in social class served as a key element affecting mothering practices. Rural and lower-class mothers had no choice but to prioritize productive labor over physical childcare; women of the traditional upper class could afford nannies; the emerging group of “new women” hired lower-class women to help with household tasks and childcare while they developed their professional careers. In addition to the physical care of children, Taiwanese mothers put great emphasis on the education and future development of children, especially sons. However, as the custom of “daughters-in-law-to-be” was quite common, from an early age many girls faced only their “mothers-in-law-to-be” instead of their biological mothers. “Mothering” was thus absent in these women’s lives, complicating the meaning of “motherhood.”