Some considerations of on the usage of the father setting up a branch family

Abstract

In order to study ultimogenitures and institiutions of the father setting up a brand family, we must study them quantitatively. It is not enough simply to illustrate them by a number of typical examples, but we must show how often these cases have occurred, and also how the inevidence has changed choronoligically.But quantitative and historical study of such a our problem as the institution of inheritance and succession inevitably has its limitation to the inadequancy of date The aim of this article is to show statistically how the institution of the father setting up a branch family has actually been put into practice and how the institution has changed chronologically in the hamlet of Watase, Hongu-cho (formerly Yo-mura), Higashimuro-gun, Wakayama-ken.In pursuing this aim, we relied chiefly on the census register-1872 through May, 1957, and also on the terrier and on our own field-work. To pursue our purpose we could not rely solely on the examination of the census register, as the census registration is so managed that it dose not contradict legally the institution of primogeniture.First we tried a static approach. We grasped the families, past and present, of this hamlet at seven point of time when the law of census registration changed. The families are comparatively small numerically and rather simple genearogically. Untill towards the end of the Taisho era, the majority were the two generation families, composed of a married couple and their unwed children, and there were few leneal three generation families excepting the families having only sons, This fact suggests that branch families had been established rather extensively. So far as the census register is concerned, it is only towards the end of the Taisho era or at the biginning of the Showa-era that the repression of the folk usage by the state law became prominent.Next we turned to the dynamic approach. From the time of the Jinshin census (the first census in Japan of 1872) to the present, the usage has continued to be current in this hamlet that the parents hand over their house and possesions to their eldest son and, moving to another house in the other children of theirs, set up a new family, although the census register tells us that the usage replaced by primigeniture at the beginning of the Showa era.Speaking of the stability of the genealogical families they are generally short lived, especially in the cases of the eldest son's families. Branch families are able to be more long lived.Collating the census register with the findings of our field-work, we come to the following conclusion : the substitution of primogeniture for the usage of father setting up a new family at the beginning of the showa-era is merely an apparent change, existing only in the text of census register, and actually that usage is still current in this hamlet.It is our purpose in this article to analyse examples of the father establishing a branch family in Watase and through the analysis to suggest the continueting of the said usage is due to the particular economic conditions of the mountain village.