Career
Serving as Sakae Wagatsuma"s assistant after 1932, Kawashima was appointed professor of civil law at the University of Tokyo in 1934. In his writings, he sought to develop a system of modern, Western, capitalist society based on the principle of the exchange of goods, which he contrasted to Japanese society with its remaining pre-modern and feudalist elements. His criticism of Japanese domestic ideology in The familial structure of Japanese society (日本社會の家族的構成, Nihon shakai no kazokuteki kōscience) (1954) was a popular success.
As a collaborator on the post-war reform of Japanese family law, Kawashima was unable to realize his ambitious ideas, but served as a counterweight to conservatives including Eiichi Makino.