主婦の「身体化」と「母原化」

First, perspectives in medical sociology for conceptualizing the relationships between illness, medicine and social control are reviewed. The following topics are considered: 1) the function medicine serves in justifying roles based on allegedly biological attributes such as sex, age and race, 2) somatizationthe exemption from normal obligations or the acquisition of others' attention and care by complaining of physical discomfort, 3) ascription of someone's illness to other(s), which results in their being deprived of some priviledge (e.g., sorcery).<br>　Next, the relationships between modern Western medicine and women, in particular, mothers, as viewed from these perspectives are discussed. Two theories held by modern medicine and their consequences for mothers are presented. Theory A : 1) modern medicine holds that women are physically and mentally weaker than men, which is one reason for the sex-based division of labor (i. e., men work outside, while women work inside the home), 2) this belief allows housewives' somatization as a disguised form of protest against stressful situations. Theory B : 1) the belief in modern medicine that several kinds of child illnesses and deviances are attributable to their mothers justifies the female role prescription of motherhood as the essence of womanhood and consequently the sex-based division of labor, 2) this theory prohibits mothers' somatization. In addition to the aforementioned role of justifying the established role prescriptions and division of labor, these two theories may create new ones.<br>　In the final section of the report, sixteen hypotheses are drawn from the previous discussion and tested against data collected in questionaires distributed among 900 housewives in Nagaoka-city, Kyoto Prefecture, in 1984. From the results, twelve hypotheses were confirmed and four were unsubstantiated. Among those confirmed were the following : 1) The greater the extent to which housewives had accepted the traditional sex-based division of labor, the more likely they were to agree with theory A. 2) The more dependent they were on the medical profession, the more likely they were to agree with theory A. 3) The greater the extent to which they had internalized the role prescription for women, the more likely they were to agree with theory B. 4) the more they were dependent upon the medical profession, the more likely they were to agree with theory B.