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子供の為に kodomo no tame ni For the Sake of the Children

子供の為に (kodomo no tame ni), for the sake of the children, is a reason without a verb, plain standard Japanese. In the medieval war tales it is a mother's reason when her sons' lives are at stake. This study follows it from a travel diary of 1223 through Chikamatsu's play of 1718 into English.

Japanese Scroll of For the Sake of the Children (kodomo no tame ni) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
For the Sake of the Children子供の為にkodomo no tame ni

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

子供の為に, kodomo no tame ni, for the sake of the children, is a reason without a verb, plain standard Japanese, and far older than its plainness suggests. In the medieval war tales it is a mother's reason when her sons' lives are at stake: the Soga brothers' mother says it in the Soga monogatari, in print by 1627, and Chikamatsu gave it to her again in a puppet play of 1718. The oldest text read here that has it is a travel diary of 1223, where the one who acts for her children is the Buddha, as a loving mother. In English it is first a dictionary sentence of 1867, the parent is anxious on account of his children, and from the 1970s a phrase of Japanese American and Japanese Canadian writing.

Overview

The sense. Plain standard Japanese; not a set expression, it is what the words say. 子供の為に is a reason without a verb, for the children's sake, and Japanese leaves the verb off as English does; for the children is the whole of the phrase, and what one does for them is left unsaid. Nothing in it says whose children they are: in the war tales they are the speaker's own sons, in an 1889 Bible concordance anyone's.

The words. 子供 kodomo: 年のいかない幼い者。児童, a young person; a child, and the children one has, 親がもうけた子; the dictionary notes that ども was a plural ending and the word now serves for one child or many. Its first citation is the 日本書紀 of 720, 児息 read コトモ. The spelling is younger than the word: the 日本国語大辞典 notes that it was written 子等 until the end of the Muromachi period, often 子共 from the Insei period on, and 子供 only in the early modern period, which is why the older witnesses below write 子ども or 子共 [1]. 為 tame: 利益があること。役立つこと, benefit, use, with the dictionary's own example 子供の為を思う, to think of the children's good; then cause; then 目的や期待の向かうところ, the object toward which purpose or hope is directed, 健康の為に運動をする, to exercise for the sake of health. 子供の為に is the third sense, purpose, with the first, benefit, behind it; the 日本国語大辞典 derives the purpose sense from the benefit one, 利益を期待するところから転じて, and its first citation for benefit is the Buddha's-footprint poems of about 753, 父母が多米に 諸人の多米に, for father and mother, for all people [2].

The text in English. For the sake of the children is 子供の為に exactly, and 子供 answers to child or children alike [3].

The historical record

1223. The Kaidōki. In a travel diary of 1223, by an unnamed recluse of Kyoto, the Buddha is a loving father who preaches to his poor children and a loving mother who makes a vow for her weak ones: 悲母の教主は、よはき子共のために, the teacher who is a loving mother, for her weak children, made her vow [4]. The diary is dated by its own journey; the text read is a print of 1665, which gives it to Kamo no Chōmei, an attribution the dictionary rejects [5].

The war tales, in print by 1627. Three of the medieval tales have the phrase, each time in a mother's mouth when her sons' lives are at stake. In the Hōgen monogatari the wife of Minamoto no Tameyoshi, told that her young sons have been put to death, says that she went to Hachiman that morning 判官や子とものためそかし, for my lord, and for the children [6]. The tale was first written early in the Kamakura period and reworked many times [7]; the text read is a print the National Diet Library dates to the Keichō era (1596–1615), and which recension first has the line is not settled here. In the Soga monogatari the Soga brothers' mother, praying for her sons' lives, says that she lived on after their father was killed ひとへに子どものためぞかし, all for the children's sake, in a print of 1627 [8]; the twelve-book text is the later kana recension of a tale whose first form is older [9]. In the Gikeiki, Tokiwa, whose mother has been seized and whose three sons are wanted, reasons that her duty to her mother will be 子とものためにも, for the children's good as well, and goes to the capital with the three boys, in a print of 1670 [10] [11]. There ため is the benefit sense, the one the dictionary says the purpose sense grew from.

1715 and 1718. Chikamatsu. In 持統天皇歌軍法, which a dictionary of play titles dates to the summer of 1715, a father going to his death tells his sons' two brides: 天下の爲子共のため。死ぬるは命の幸, for the realm, for the children: to die is life's good fortune [12] [13]. In 曽我会稽山, first staged in 1718, the Soga brothers' mother, the war tale's mother again, says in a speech on a mother's love: 子供の爲にと病を作り。思ひ設けし母が慈悲は仇と成, the mercy of a mother who, for her children's sake, feigned illness and planned ahead, has turned to harm. The library's text is an 1891 reprint [14] [15].

1867. The phrase in English. Hepburn's first Japanese-English dictionary gives it under TAME: Oya ga kodomo no tame ni kurō szru, the parent is anxious on account of his children [16]. The second edition, of 1872, has the parent toils for his children [17]. It is the earliest known English for the phrase, and it is a parent's.

1889 and 1891. A concordance, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. A Bible concordance of 1889 lists, under intercessory prayer, 紹介の祈禱, the heading (子供の爲に), for children, with its references, one of them Matthew 15:22, the Canaanite woman who pleads for her daughter [18]. And in Wakamatsu Shizuko's translation of Burnett, serialized from 1890 and printed as a book in 1891, Cedric's mother says to the earl's lawyer 仰の通り、子供の爲には結構な…, as you say, for the child's sake it is a fine thing [19] [20].

From the 1970s. A phrase of Japanese American and Japanese Canadian writing. An essay in The Asian American: The Historical Experience (1976) writes that the term kodomo no tame ni (for the sake of the children) reflected the ethos of a group [21]; Dennis M. Ogawa's history of the Japanese in Hawaii (1978) takes it as its title, Kodomo no Tame ni: For the Sake of the Children [22]; and in Joy Kogawa's novel Obasan (1981) the narrator hears the adults whispering, "Kodomo no tame. For the sake of the children" [23]. The three books are lending copies, read here only in the Internet Archive's full-text index, and their words are quoted from it.

What is not a source. The phrase has no author. The Kaidōki of 1223 is the oldest text read here that has it, and not its origin; a mother's for the children need not have begun in a book.

Today. The English for the sake of the children keeps what 子供の為に keeps: the purposive に, for the sake of, not a possessive.

A reading

The Soga mother stands behind 子供の為に twice: in the war tale she has lived on for her children's sake, and in 1718 Chikamatsu gives her the phrase again. In the medieval tales it is what a mother says when her sons' lives are at stake; the Kaidōki gives it to the Buddha as a mother; Hepburn's first English for it is a parent anxious for his children; and the children of Japanese immigrants kept it, in English, as their parents' reason. It is a parent's reason, said without its verb, and what is done for the children is left for the one who says it.

References

  1. 「子供」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/子供
  2. 「為」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/為
  3. JMdict (EDRDG), 「子供」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/word/子供
  4. 『鴨長明海道記』, 2 vols., 1665 print, scan 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2539928/1/69
  5. 「海道記」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/海道記
  6. 『保元物語』, 3 vols., a print the National Diet Library dates to the Keichō era, scan 11. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544707/1/11
  7. 「保元物語」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/保元物語
  8. 『曽我物語』, 12 vols., 1627 print, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2567689/1/15
  9. 「曽我物語」, 日本大百科全書 (Nipponica), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/曽我物語
  10. 『義経記』, 8 vols., 1670 print, scan 4. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2567389/1/4
  11. 「義経記」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/義経記
  12. 近松門左衛門, 『持統天皇歌軍法』, in 『近松時代浄瑠璃』, 博文館, 1896, p. 871, scan 446. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1883014/1/446
  13. 「持統天皇歌軍法」, 歌舞伎・浄瑠璃外題よみかた辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/持統天皇歌軍法
  14. 近松門左衛門, 『曽我会稽山』, 武蔵屋叢書閣, 1891 print (1718 play), p. 50, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876698/1/28
  15. 「曽我会稽山」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/曽我会稽山
  16. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary; with an English and Japanese Index, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1867, p. 455, s.v. TAME. Internet Archive japaneseenglishd00hepb. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb
  17. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, second edition, 1872, p. 521, s.v. TAME, National Diet Library pid 993689, scan 278. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/278
  18. 上田貞次郎編, 『旧新約両全書聖語類聚』, 上田済生堂, 1889, p. 23, scan 18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825559/1/18
  19. バアネット, 『小公子』, 若松賤子訳, 1891, p. 54, scan 34. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1168359/1/34
  20. 「小公子」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/小公子
  21. The Asian American: The Historical Experience: Essays, Clio Books, Santa Barbara, 1976, in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/asianamericanhis0000unse
  22. Dennis M. Ogawa, Kodomo no Tame ni: For the Sake of the Children: The Japanese American Experience in Hawaii, University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1978 (the Internet Archive copy is a 1980 printing), in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/kodomonotamenifo00ogaw
  23. Joy Kogawa, Obasan, Lester & Orpen Dennys, Toronto, 1981, in the Internet Archive's full-text index. https://archive.org/details/obasanko00koga

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations — the bracketed paragraphs checked at their addresses with web search on; all confirmed, none contradicted

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 子供の為に (kodomo no tame ni)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kodomo-no-tame-ni.