農家の農業経営における女性の地位とその法的取り扱い

Abstract

Japanese agricultural production is carried on by about three million agro-families. The agro-family means “stem family” in its essential character in Japan. In modern national law, a stem family has no legal personality. But in traditional sense or social customs, each agro-family is a social unit itself. In 1948, the new code of family law came into force, “the head of a family” was abolished in national statutes. But the fact that the unit of agricultural production is carried on each agro-family is not largely changed up to the present. Recently the roles of women on the farm enterprise in the agro-family have gradually increased in importance. The types of their roles may be divided into three ways as follows. The type I; the wife establishes a partnership for the farming with her husband (and his parents or their eldest son and his wife). The type II; the wife is a mere labour power (the owner and manager of the farm is her husband or his father). The type III; the wife is only a manager of her farming (her husband is a full time worker in other industries or municipal offices etc.). National statutes and administrations (especilally taxation) under the national ones are executed on the assumption that type II is the only one, and the type I and III are out of consideration. Accordingly in the type I and III, I can say that there is a quite large contradiction between the substantial roles of wives and legal status of them. However, only the type I may be desirable form of agro-family and type III has tended to increase, so we have the pressing need to study the method to solve this contradiction and practice it.