Two kinds of stem-family system? Traditional Japan and Europe compared

Continuity and Change

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 167-186

  Saito, Osamu ^a  

^a HITOTSUBASHI UNIVERSITY   (Japan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0141573849     PISSN: 02684160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0268416098003087     Document Type: Review

References (50)

1. John Embree, Suye mura: a Japanese village (Chicago, 1939), 79. Postwar publications of a similar kind of fieldwork include Richard Beardsley et al., Village Japan (Chicago, 1959); Ronald Dore, Shinohata: a portrait of a Japanese village (New York, 1978); and Robert Smith, Kurusu: the price of progress in a Japanese village 1951-75 (Stanford, 1978). (Throughout this article references to Japanese-language literature will be kept to a minimum.)
2. John Embree, Suye mura: a Japanese village (Chicago, 1939), 79. Postwar publications of a similar kind of fieldwork include Richard Beardsley et al., Village Japan (Chicago, 1959); Ronald Dore, Shinohata: a portrait of a Japanese village (New York, 1978); and Robert Smith, Kurusu: the price of progress in a Japanese village 1951-75 (Stanford, 1978). (Throughout this article references to Japanese-language literature will be kept to a minimum.)
3. John Embree, Suye mura: a Japanese village (Chicago, 1939), 79. Postwar publications of a similar kind of fieldwork include Richard Beardsley et al., Village Japan (Chicago, 1959); Ronald Dore, Shinohata: a portrait of a Japanese village (New York, 1978); and Robert Smith, Kurusu: the price of progress in a Japanese village 1951-75 (Stanford, 1978). (Throughout this article references to Japanese-language literature will be kept to a minimum.)
4. John Embree, Suye mura: a Japanese village (Chicago, 1939), 79. Postwar publications of a similar kind of fieldwork include Richard Beardsley et al., Village Japan (Chicago, 1959); Ronald Dore, Shinohata: a portrait of a Japanese village (New York, 1978); and Robert Smith, Kurusu: the price of progress in a Japanese village 1951-75 (Stanford, 1978). (Throughout this article references to Japanese-language literature will be kept to a minimum.)
5. Embree, Suye mura, 79.
6. For an overview of Tokugawa evidence and an attempt to formulate a set of householdformation rules for the Japanese family, see Osamu Saito, 'Marriage, family labour and the stem-family household: traditional Japan in comparative perspective', in R. Wall and O. Saito, eds. The economic and social aspects of the family life-cycle: Europe and Japan, traditional and modern (Cambridge, forthcoming). The first theoretical attempt among Japanese sociologists to identify a stem-family life-cycle pattern was E. Suzuki's, Nihon n̄son shakaigaku (Tokyo, 1940), and its empirical demonstration is found in Koyama Takashi, 'Kazoku henka no shūkiteki henka', in Kitano Seiichi and Okada Ken eds., Ie: sono kōzō bunseki (Tokyo, 1959), 69-83. See also a discussion in Smith, Kurusu, 48-52.
7. For an overview of Tokugawa evidence and an attempt to formulate a set of householdformation rules for the Japanese family, see Osamu Saito, 'Marriage, family labour and the stem-family household: traditional Japan in comparative perspective', in R. Wall and O. Saito, eds. The economic and social aspects of the family life-cycle: Europe and Japan, traditional and modern (Cambridge, forthcoming). The first theoretical attempt among Japanese sociologists to identify a stem-family life-cycle pattern was E. Suzuki's, Nihon n̄son shakaigaku (Tokyo, 1940), and its empirical demonstration is found in Koyama Takashi, 'Kazoku henka no shūkiteki henka', in Kitano Seiichi and Okada Ken eds., Ie: sono kōzō bunseki (Tokyo, 1959), 69-83. See also a discussion in Smith, Kurusu, 48-52.
8. For an overview of Tokugawa evidence and an attempt to formulate a set of householdformation rules for the Japanese family, see Osamu Saito, 'Marriage, family labour and the stem-family household: traditional Japan in comparative perspective', in R. Wall and O. Saito, eds. The economic and social aspects of the family life-cycle: Europe and Japan, traditional and modern (Cambridge, forthcoming). The first theoretical attempt among Japanese sociologists to identify a stem-family life-cycle pattern was E. Suzuki's, Nihon n̄son shakaigaku (Tokyo, 1940), and its empirical demonstration is found in Koyama Takashi, 'Kazoku henka no shūkiteki henka', in Kitano Seiichi and Okada Ken eds., Ie: sono kōzō bunseki (Tokyo, 1959), 69-83. See also a discussion in Smith, Kurusu, 48-52.
9. For an overview of Tokugawa evidence and an attempt to formulate a set of householdformation rules for the Japanese family, see Osamu Saito, 'Marriage, family labour and the stem-family household: traditional Japan in comparative perspective', in R. Wall and O. Saito, eds. The economic and social aspects of the family life-cycle: Europe and Japan, traditional and modern (Cambridge, forthcoming). The first theoretical attempt among Japanese sociologists to identify a stem-family life-cycle pattern was E. Suzuki's, Nihon n̄son shakaigaku (Tokyo, 1940), and its empirical demonstration is found in Koyama Takashi, 'Kazoku henka no shūkiteki henka', in Kitano Seiichi and Okada Ken eds., Ie: sono kōzō bunseki (Tokyo, 1959), 69-83. See also a discussion in Smith, Kurusu, 48-52.
10. Frédéric Le Play, La réforme sociale en France (Tours, 1872); trans. and ed. C. B. Silver, Frederick Le Play on family, work, and social change (Chicago, 1982), 26.
11. Frédéric Le Play, La réforme sociale en France (Tours, 1872); trans. and ed. C. B. Silver, Frederick Le Play on family, work, and social change (Chicago, 1982), 26.
12. Walter Goldschmidt and Evalyn Kunkel, 'The structure of the peasant family', American Anthropologist 73 (1971), 1058-70.
13. Lutz Berkner, 'The stem family and the development cycle of the peasant household: an eighteenth-century Austrian example', American Historical Review 77 (1972), 398-418.
14. Michael Mitterauer, Historische-anthropologische Familienforschung (Vienna, 1990), 96, (with free translation by Markus German and Richard Wall). See also Michael Mitterauer and Reinhald Sieder, The European family: patriarch to partnership from the middle ages to the present (Oxford, 1982), 33-4, and David Gaunt, 'The property and kin relationships of retired farmers in northern and central Europe', in Richard Wall et al. eds, Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983).
15. Michael Mitterauer, Historische-anthropologische Familienforschung (Vienna, 1990), 96, (with free translation by Markus German and Richard Wall). See also Michael Mitterauer and Reinhald Sieder, The European family: patriarch to partnership from the middle ages to the present (Oxford, 1982), 33-4, and David Gaunt, 'The property and kin relationships of retired farmers in northern and central Europe', in Richard Wall et al. eds, Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983).
16. Michael Mitterauer, Historische-anthropologische Familienforschung (Vienna, 1990), 96, (with free translation by Markus German and Richard Wall). See also Michael Mitterauer and Reinhald Sieder, The European family: patriarch to partnership from the middle ages to the present (Oxford, 1982), 33-4, and David Gaunt, 'The property and kin relationships of retired farmers in northern and central Europe', in Richard Wall et al. eds, Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983).
17. John Hajnal, 'Two kinds of pre-industrial household formation system', in Wall et al. eds, Family forms, 70.
18. Michel Verdon, 'The stem family: towards a general theory ', Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10 (1979), 98.
19. Ibid., 97.
20. Michael Mitterauer, 'Mechael roots of family developments', unpublished ppaer, 1994 (available in the library of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure).
21. The neo-local principle (heading one's own household after marriage) and the existence of life-cycle servants are two of the ingredients of Hajnal's north-west European familyformation system. See also Peter Laslett, Family life and illicit love in earlier generations (Cambridge, 1977), ch. 1.
22. See also Michael Mitterauer and Alexander Kagan, 'Russian family structure from a central European point of view', Journal of Family History 7 (1982), 103-31.
23. See Verdon, 'The stem family', 94, and Mitterauer and Sieder, The European family, ch. 4.
24. See Verdon, 'The stem family', 94, and Mitterauer and Sieder, The European family, ch. 4.
25. Richard Wall, 'Introduction', in Wall et al. eds, Family forms, 53.
26. Teizo Toda, Kazoku kōsei (Tokyo, 1937; reprinted 1970).
27. The proportion of people living in administration districts other than 'cities', calculated from the census report.
28. Takeyoshi Kawashima and Kurt Steiner, 'Modernization and divorce rates trends in Japan', Economic Development and Cultural Change 9 (1960), 216.
29. Kunio Yanagita, Meiji-Taishōshi sesō-hen (Tokyo, 1931; reprinted, 1967), 210.
30. Nobushige Hozumi, Ancestor worship and Japanese law (Tokyo, 1912), 164.
31. Zenkoku minji kanrei ruishu, published by the Ministry of Justice in 1880, translated in John Wigmore ed., Law and justice in Towugawa Japan: materials for the history of Japanese law and justice under the Tokugawa shogunate, 1603-1867 (Tokyo, 1972), pt 7, 225. The chapter on adoption is devoted to an enumeration of 'local peculiarities' concerning how to arrange an adoption and how to dissolve it when necessary.
32. Zenkoku minji kanrei ruishu, published by the Ministry of Justice in 1880, translated in John Wigmore ed., Law and justice in Towugawa Japan: materials for the history of Japanese law and justice under the Tokugawa shogunate, 1603-1867 (Tokyo, 1972), pt 7, 225. The chapter on adoption is devoted to an enumeration of 'local peculiarities' concerning how to arrange an adoption and how to dissolve it when necessary.
33. Satomi Kurosu and Emiko Ochiai, 'Adoption as an heirship strategy under demographic constraints: a case from nineteenth-century Japan', Journal of Family History 20 (1995), 261-88.
34. The infant mortality rates are from Naikaku Tōkei-kyoku, Nihon teikoku jinkō dōtai tōkei, Taisho 9-nen (Tokyo, 1924), 62-3 and 98, and (Tokyo, 1936), 52 and 82; and lifetable survival rates are from 1930 (pp. 4-5), and 1941 (pp. 5-6). The latter rates cover 1921-1925 and 1935-1936 respectively.
35. Saito, 'Marriage', in Wall and Saito eds., Economic and social aspects.
36. Laurel Cornell, 'The death of old women: folklore and differential mortality in nineteenth century Japan', in Gail Bernstein ed., Recreating Japanese women, 1600-1945 (Berkeley, 1991); and Noriko Tsuya and Satomi Kurosu, 'Mortality responses to shortterm economic stress and household context in early modern Japan : evidence from two northeastern villages', in T. Bengtsson and O. Saito eds., Population and the economy: from hunger to modern economic growth (Oxford, forthcoming).
37. Laurel Cornell, 'The death of old women: folklore and differential mortality in nineteenth century Japan', in Gail Bernstein ed., Recreating Japanese women, 1600-1945 (Berkeley, 1991); and Noriko Tsuya and Satomi Kurosu, 'Mortality responses to shortterm economic stress and household context in early modern Japan : evidence from two northeastern villages', in T. Bengtsson and O. Saito eds., Population and the economy: from hunger to modern economic growth (Oxford, forthcoming).
38. See for example Thomas Smith, Nakahara: family farming and population in a Japanese village, 1717-1830 (Stanford, 1977), ch. 8; Masao Takagi, 'Landholding and the family life-cycle in traditional Japan', in Wall and Saito eds., Economic and social aspects. Smith's analysis shows that the departure of an heir's siblings was tightly controlled in order to keep the size and composition of the family workforce within a desired range, while Takagi demonstrates that the size of a family's workforce was a decisive factor in whether or not the family decreased its landholdings during a famine.
39. See for example Thomas Smith, Nakahara: family farming and population in a Japanese village, 1717-1830 (Stanford, 1977), ch. 8; Masao Takagi, 'Landholding and the family life-cycle in traditional Japan', in Wall and Saito eds., Economic and social aspects. Smith's analysis shows that the departure of an heir's siblings was tightly controlled in order to keep the size and composition of the family workforce within a desired range, while Takagi demonstrates that the size of a family's workforce was a decisive factor in whether or not the family decreased its landholdings during a famine.
40. Yujiro Hayami and Saburo Yamada, The agricultural development of Japan: a century's perspective (Tokyo, 1991), 66 and 251.
41. For an analysis of this 1933 farm survey, see Osamu Saito, 'Gender, workload and agricultural progress: Japan's historical experience in perspective', in René Leboutte ed., Proto-industrialization: recent research and new perspectives (Geneva, 1996),
42. Andreas Plakans, 'Stepping down in former times: a comparative assessment of "retirement" in traditional Europe', in David Kertzer and K. W. Scaie eds., Age structuring in comparative perspective (Hillsdale, NJ, 1989).
43. See Anne Booth and R. M. Sandrum, Labour absorption in agriculture (Oxford, 1985), ch. 6.
44. Based on estimates in Mataji Umemura et al., Manpower: estimates of long-term economic statistics of Japan since 1868, vol. 2 (Tokyo, 1988), 258. No separate figures are available for urban and rural sectors.
45. For this time-budget survey, see Osamu Saito, 'A note on women's working hours in peasant and non-peasant family economies: the case of pre-war Japan', in Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux and Solvi Sogner eds., Socioeconomic consequences of sex ratios in historical perspective (Eleventh International Economic History Congress; Milan, 1994).
46. For a brief account of this civil code issue in the 1890s, see Sukehiro Hirakawa, 'Japan's turn to the west', in Marius Jansen ed., The Cambridge history of Japan, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 1989), 472-7.
47. Dore, Shinohata, 141.
48. Louise Tilly and Joan Scott, Women, work, and family (New York, 1978), pt. 3.
49. Kōseishō Jinkō Mondai Kenkyūjo, Jinkō tōkei shiryōshū (Tokyo, 1992), 81 and 88.
50. Keizai Kikakuchō, Kokumin seikatsu hakusho: Heisei 6-nen (Tokyo, 1994), 78.