Peace and Prosperity in the Household

家内安全 (kanai anzen): the household kept safe. 家内 is the inside of a house and the people in it, 安全 is the absence of danger, and the four together are the prayer that no one in the family meets accident or illness. It is the oldest prayer in this catalogue and the plainest: a priest of Musashi wrote it into his prayer-book six hundred years ago as the wish he made for the household beside the wish he made for the realm, and it has been said before the gods ever since, by the shrine priest in a Kyōgen who tells a teahouse keeper that he prays for it every day, by the hearth-god an old trades encyclopedia calls its guardian, and by the amulets on the house-shelf, where 家内安全 hangs beside 商売繁盛, a thriving trade. The word says safe; the prosperity in the English title came in with a Japanese-English dictionary a century ago and stayed because the two amulets are neighbors. The phrase and the new house have been together since a manual of house-building lore tied it to the raising of the pillar: with the pillar up, the descendants flourish and the household is safe. It is Japanese, not Chinese; the Chinese amulet says 合家平安, peace to the whole family. Its companion 家庭円満 is the wish for what happens inside the house once it is safe. four-character idiom 家内安全 is composed of the word 家内 (read kanai) meaning "household; one's family" and 安全 (read anzen) meaning "safety; security".

家内安全 is a great housewarming gift and is a wish for the family to be safe and prosperous.