仏教には，水子を祀るという教義はないし，水子を各家で祀るという祖先祭祀も，前近代の日本にはまったくなかった。にもかかわらず，今日，「水子の霊が崇るので水子供養をしなければならない」と，人々に噂されるのはなにゆえであろうか。いわゆる1970年代におこり，80年代にブームを迎えた水子供養が，すでに20年を経過した今日，これを一つの民俗として研究してみる必要があろう。前近代の日本では生存可能数以上の子供が生まれた場合，これをどのように処理してきたか。一つには，予め拾われることを予期して，捨て子にする風があった。捨て子は，強く育つと信じられ，わざわざ捨吉などの名前をつけたこともあった。しかし，社会が育ててくれる余裕がないと思えるとき，間引きや堕胎がおこなわれた。暮らしていけないがゆえの間引きや堕胎を，人々は「モドス」「カエル」と言って，合理化してきた。実際，当時の新生児の生存率は低く，自然死・人為死に関わらず，その魂が直ちに再生すると信じて，特別簡略な葬法をした。それでも，姙娠した女が子供を亡くすということは，女の心身にとっては痛みであり，悩みがないわけではない。しかも，明治時代以降の近代家族が誕生するにあたって，女は「良妻賢母」「産めよ増やせよ」「子なきは去れ」と，仕事を持たない「産の性」に限定された。そのため，女は身体の痛みの上に，社会的育徳という痛みを積み上げられた。そんな悲痛な叫びが，水子供養の習俗に表れている。ところが，この女の叫びは，宗教活動の方向と経営を見失った寺院のマーケットにされてしまう。寺院や新宗教の販売戦略，心霊学と称するライターによって演出され，読み捨て週刊誌に取り上げられてひろまった。明治時代以降の近代家族は，男の論理による産業システムのためのものであった。その最高潮である60年代の高度経済成長が終わった70年代に入って，水子供養が出てきていることは興味深い。産業社会の幻影が，女を水子供養に走らせた。その女を，寺院は顧客として受け入れた。こうして，女は金に囲いこまれて，水子という不安に追い込まれ，水子供養という安心に追い込まれていったのである。そこで，彼女らの残した絵馬を分析することで，女の追い詰められた心理の一端を，分析してみたいと思う。

Buddhism does not teach that prayers should be offered for the spirits of miscarried babies, nor did ancestor worship in pre-modern Japan include the practice at the domestic level. This being so, why is it that today it is commonly said in Japanese society that ‘Mizugo kuyō must be performed, or the spirit of the dead baby will haunt you’? The practice of mizugo kuyō started in the 1970's, becoming extremely popular in the 1980's; now, twenty years on, the practice needs to be studied as an ethnic custom.What was done in pre-modern Japan when more children were born than could be supported? Abortion or killing at birth of a child that could not be supported, became a rationalized act, commonly referred to as ‘returning’ the child. The survival rate of new-born infants at that time was in fact low, and a particularly simple funeral service was held in the belief that, regardless of whether the death was natural or induced, the spirit of such a child would be immediately reborn.Even so, for a pregnant woman the loss of her child is both a physical and a spiritual blow, which no woman can undergo without suffering. Added to which, the birth of the modern family from the Meiji Period onward, with such slogans as ‘Good wife, wise mother’, and ‘Revile the barren’, defined woman as the ‘breeding sex’, with no other work to perform. Thus the pain of social immorality was added to the woman's physical pain. The cry of grief that this produced is apparent in the practice of mizugo kuyō.However, this female cry was made into a market for the temples, which had lost sight of the direction of their religious activities, and were in administrative straits. It was played upon by the sales strategies of the temples and the ‘New Religions’ and writers calling themselves psychists, and spread through the pages of cheap weekly magazines.The modern family after the Meiji Period was something that existed solely for the sake of the industrial system according to male logic. It is interesting to note that the practice of mizugo kuyō appeared in the 1970's, when economic growth had passed the peak it reached in the 1960's. The illusions of the industrial society made women turn to mizugo kuyō; and the temples accepted these women as customers. Thus women found themselves besieged by unrest over their miscarried babies, they were driven toward the relief to be found in mizugo kuyō.Accordingly, I would like to analyze, by means of an analysis of the ema (votive pictures) left by these beleaguered women, some part of their state of mind.

source:https://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/outline/publication/ronbun/ronbun3/index.html#no57