家庭円満 katei enman Household Harmony
Abstract
家庭円満, katei enman, a harmonious home, is a Japanese-made Meiji word: its phrase, 家庭の円満, the harmony of the home, is in print by 1895, and the compound by 1899, in the oldest dated items of each form that the National Diet Library's full-text search finds. The magazines and an Osaka publisher's advertisement of 1902 held it out as a pleasure a home could hold, and by 1903 two who's-whos paid it to a family as a compliment. A new-words dictionary of 1919 is the first dictionary found to enter it, and no national Japanese dictionary opened here has given it a headword since. Today it is also among the blessings shrines name.
Overview
The sense. 家庭円満 is said of a household: whether the people inside get along. The advice books hold it up as something to make, two who's-whos of 1903 report it as something a family has, and today shrines name it as a blessing. Neither the デジタル大辞泉 nor the 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank, gives it a headword, though the open dictionary JMdict carries it [1].
The words. 家庭 in its present sense is a Meiji word, cited in the big dictionary from an 1871 newspaper for inside the house and from 金色夜叉 (1897–98) for the smallest social group of kin, centered on husband and wife and parents and children, and the place where they live [2]; the dictionary's note says that until early Meiji 家内 and 家 were the main words for the household, and that from the Meiji 20s (1887–96) 家庭 appears often, above all in the magazines, in a time of reforming the old feudal 家 toward a Western style of life, when people began to think of 家庭 as the translation of home [2]. Until 家庭 came into general use in the middle of the Meiji period, its entry for 家内 says, 家内 and 家 carried that sense [3]. 円満 is Buddhist, fullness, from a ninth-century text, then round and full of a face, then complete, and last without corners, getting along, for which the dictionary's first citation is a novel of 1905–06 [4]. The use is older than that citation by more than a decade: an Osaka who's-who of 1893 already calls a druggist's family harmonious, 一家圓滿 [5], and a Hakodate journal speaks of the harmony of the home in 1895 [6].
The text in English. The Japanese-English dictionaries give its phrase in example sentences from 1918 and the compound from 1928; JMdict's headword gives family happiness and household harmony.
The historical record
1895 to 1899. The harmony of the home, then the word. The phrase comes first. In June 1895 a Hakodate education association's journal, writing on the education of women, speaks of preserving the harmony of the home and its purity (a character of the last word unread in the excerpt), and husband and wife in accord is the greatest need of a happy life [6]. In November 1899 a Tokyo women's magazine runs a note headed 家庭の圓滿, the harmony of the home, and uses the compound in it, in the oldest dated row of the compound the full-text search returns, an issue open in Japan only and seen here only in the search's own text: more than half of life's pleasure is in the home; lack household harmony, and more than half our pleasure is cut away [7]. The writer 松下曲水 wrote on the harmonious home in the same magazine in 1900 and in a book of 1901 that addresses young women: draw an abstract ideal of a home in your minds, young ladies; choose a husband and educate to fit that ideal, and may you not come near to household harmony? [8]. A society's journal in 1901 calls Kant's childhood home harmonious, without a ripple [9].
1902. The advertisement. In January 1902 the Osaka publisher 尚文堂 advertised the eleventh volume of its Home Library, 『家庭の快楽』, in the book and in two magazines: of all the pleasures of this world none surpasses the pleasure of the home; how then to obtain the joy of a harmonious home and the delight of the family circle — that is why this book was compiled [10]. The word is built from two Meiji senses at once, 家庭 as home and 円満 as getting along.
1903 to 1931. The compliment of the who's-whos, and the moralists. In 1903 two who's-whos praise a home this way: having had his eldest son, the home is harmonious and the omens auspicious [11]; the two zithers in tune, the home harmonious (of a woman professor) [12]. It recurs in 1906 in the Hokkaidō settlers' reports, a family of six, the home harmonious [13], and in a history of the silk trade, the home harmonious and a mild air fills the house [14]. The moralists take it up: men of late are apt not to want the pleasures of a harmonious home (1904) [15]; a preacher's father, in a postscript dated September 1905 to his son's home sermons, printed in 1906, hopes they will be some help toward household harmony [16]; a Chinese-language home-economics text printed in Tokyo in 1908 makes household harmony the mistress's responsibility [17]; the Chinese-language journal 新民叢報, printed in Yokohama, uses it in 1905, the oldest Chinese-language row the National Diet Library's full-text search returns [18]; and a 1931 Japanese-Chinese dictionary explains it to Chinese readers [19].
1919. The first dictionary headword found. A new-words dictionary glosses it カテーエンマン, a household living round and without complaint [20]. The National Diet Library's full-text index also returns a kanji dictionary of 1905 and a new-words dictionary of 1914 for the word; whether either enters it is not settled [21], and dictionary-titled items of 1906 and 1911 return no snippet either. A dictionary of new-era words of 1930 enters お蜜柑, the tangerine, as slang for it, because, like tangerines, they all cling together on good terms [22]. No national Japanese dictionary opened here has given it a headword since.
Today. A shrine's blessing. Japanese Wikipedia lists 家庭円満 among the blessings of shrines (children, safe birth, household harmony, at a Tokyo shrine; long life, prayers for safe birth, household harmony, at a shrine in Tajimi) and among the things the Buddhist deity Aizen Myōō is prayed to for (love, matchmaking, household harmony; 縁結び, matchmaking, is an ordinary word) [23].
The sense across time. 家庭円満 has one sense, a home whose people get along, and four uses: a pleasure the advice books and the advertisement held out, an aim the moralists set, a compliment two who's-whos paid a family, and a blessing asked at a shrine.
What is not a source. The phrase is Japanese-made. CBETA's search of the Chinese Buddhist canon returns nothing on three spellings; Chinese Wikisource has 家庭圓滿 only in modern court rulings; the oldest Chinese-language row the National Diet Library's full-text search returns is 新民叢報, printed in Yokohama, in 1905 [18]. 家庭円満 is not a four-character idiom in the traditional sense: it is a modern compound with no headword in the national dictionaries opened.
The word in English
1918. 武信's Japanese-English dictionary. Under 円満, the phrase 家庭の圓滿, happy home life; under 家庭, the sentence 圓滿な家庭は人間の大なる幸福である, A harmonious household is a great blessing to man [24].
1928. 斎藤's Japanese-English dictionary. 家庭円満なり, Harmony reigns over the household [25].
1941. 研究社's Japanese-English dictionary. One sentence: they live in such harmony that I never heard their voices once raised [26].
Today. JMdict gives it a headword: family happiness; household harmony [1].
A reading
家庭円満 is a Meiji word, a harmonious home, in print by 1899, when 家庭 as home was itself new, and held out to young women as a pleasure before two who's-whos paid it to a family as a compliment.
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
References
- JMdict, 「家庭円満」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/search/家庭円満
- 「家庭」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/家庭-45442
- 「家内」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/家内-465006
- 「円満」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/円満-448231
- 金光万録 編, 『日本薬業家名士伝』, Osaka, December 1893, scan 93, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/778569/1/93
- 『函館教育協会雑誌』, June 1895, scan 5, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1599095/1/5
- 『姫百合』, 姫百合社, Tokyo, November 1899, scan 43, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1553020/1/43
- 松下曲水, 『恋と人』, 1901, scan 52 (p. 103). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755306/1/52 · first in 『姫百合』, August 1900, scan 9, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1553024/1/9
- 『日本済美会雑誌』, April 1901, scan 19, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3560170/1/19
- 『家庭の快楽』, 家庭全書 第十一編, 尚文堂, Osaka, January 1902, scan 108. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/848329/1/108
- 『立身致富信用公録』, 1903, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1086548/1/17
- 『現今日本名家列伝』, 1903, scan 187. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/777743/1/187
- 北海道協会, 『移住者成績調査』, 1906, scan 36. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/800843/1/36
- 『日本製糸業の大勢』, 1906, scan 63. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/802416/1/63
- 『女道叢話』, 1904, scan 10. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/757229/1/10
- 河崎顕了, 『家庭説教』, 法蔵館, Kyoto, April 1906, scan 130 (a postscript dated September 1905); the National Diet Library item also holds a volume of 1908. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/818383/1/130
- 『清国家庭及学堂用家政学』, 富山房, 1908, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/848405/1/19
- 『新民叢報』, 新民叢報社, Yokohama, May 1905, scan 40, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12527468/1/40
- 『日華新辞典』, 1931, scan 150. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1176442/1/150
- 『新しい語のポケット辞典』, 1919, scan 53. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/962022/1/53
- 森訥 編, 『漢和中辞典 : 熟語註解』, 文海堂, 1905, and 大畑匡山, 『現代文芸新語辞典』, 1914: hits in the NDL's full-text index with no snippet and no page image served. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862750 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/936185
- 『時勢に後れぬ新時代用語辞典』, 1930, scan 199. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1111588/1/199
- Japanese Wikipedia, 「七社神社 (東京都北区)」 § 神徳, 「新羅神社 (多治見市)」 and 「愛染明王」. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/七社神社_(東京都北区) · https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/新羅神社_(多治見市) · https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/愛染明王
- 『武信和英大辞典』, 1918, scan 137 (s.v. emman) and scan 463 (s.v. katei). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/137 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/463
- 斎藤秀三郎, 『斎藤和英大辞典』, 1928, at Weblio. https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/家庭円満
- 『研究社新和英大辞典』, 1941, scan 506. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126818/1/506