家庭經濟與現代主婦：邵飄萍譯介《實用一家經濟法》析論

Home Economics and the Modern Housewife: An Analysis of Shao Piaoping’s Practical Financial Methods for a Home

《實用一家經濟法》是邵飄萍 1915 年在日本編寫，其譯介動機與當時知識分子認為婦女或家庭經濟不是個人私事而是公共事務，以及袁世凱政權倡導賢妻良母主義，社會要求女學重家政的思潮密切相關。本書在國民經濟的前提下，建構了一種「專業主婦」的新形象，對於主婦「自主權」的強調，令人耳目一新。書中明確提出主婦是家庭中負責消費和儲蓄的人，這是有別於中國傳統以男性家長負責家庭的財務規劃（「居家制用」）的見解；他又從個人家庭出發，強調妻子作為家庭經濟主持人的新角色，迴避了婆媳兩代女人的權力角逐問題。《實用一家經濟法》在民國時期的不斷重印流通，說明日本方面的知識對家政學的影響仍然相當廣泛，特別是在青年學生的讀者群中占有一定的地位，有助於修正過去認為家政學來自西方的觀點。

The publication of the Chinese version of Practical Financial Methods for a Homein Republican China was indicative of a shifting mindset among intellectuals that home economics and women’s work as a housewife were no longer merely a private matter but rather a public issue worthy of broader discussion. Its publication was closely linked to the Yuan Shikai government’s advocacy of an ideal conceptof womanhood summed up by the Chinese phrase “virtuous wife and good mother”, as well as societal exhortations towomen education to focus on home economics and housekeeping. The work extolls the value of “professional housewives”, emphasizing the importance of this new role for wives. This emerging attitude stood in sharp contrast to the traditional Chinese responsibility for financial planning as largely belonging to the male head of the household. It also evaded the generational problem of struggles for power between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. This book was continually published and circulated during the Republican Period, indicating the lasting and widespread Japanese intellectual influence on the field of home economics in China, with notable impact upon young Chinese student readers in particular. This article analyses the book’s discourse on home economics and its influence on contemporary readers, thereby allowing scholars to reconsider past views among historians that Chinese home economics was a field largely emerging from the influx of Western ideas and thought.