The Process of Establishment, Growth and Disorganization of the Extended Family System

Abstract

Originally the Ie, the Japanese family, contained within itself factors of both the extended family and the kinship relationship. The question is how this family and the village, the combination of families have come into existence and continued in their concrete forms in the framework of the feudalism. Then in course of time under specific socio-historical conditions, factors of the extended family came to reveal themselves and led to establishment and growth of the extended family system. And then feudalism helps to develop the extended family system in one respect, but in another it hinders its development. Then afterwards, tinder certain conditions, factors of the kinship came to reveal themselves and led to establishment and growth of the kinship relationship. The present thesis is intended to throw some light on the historico-developmental aspect of the extended family system by examining it in the framework of feudalism, by choosing a concrete example in a mountain village. The results may be summarized as follows.1) Each of the independent small villages of the early modern times was composed of one or two compactly organized extended families, of which the honke (the main family) constituted a compound family having more or less medieval characteristics. Each small village was under the rule of the feudal lord as kado (a taxation unit) and every honke as kado-yakunin (kado official) who were responsible for paying taxes to the lord.2) There were several types of the extended family at the time. There were firstly, a type where almost all those expected to found the bunke (branch families) whether they were consanguineous or not, were organized into the compound family of the honke ; secondly, a type where the bunke founder won a high degree of economic independence, though living in the same yashiki (compound) as the honke; thirdly, where bunke gained economic independence.The present writer uses the word dozoku-sei (the extended family Institution) as a concept comprising all these types in it.3) Afterwards more and more bunke were founded from within the Ie. Thus the extended family system developed itself and the feudal lord seems to have encouraged the process from above.4) The following is an outline of the developing process of the village and the extended family system with special reference to the way the land of an Ie was localized in the village. In the early modern times when the village was formed, every kado had their land in a concentrated form, but the land came to be split up in pieces which were mixed up with one another. The kado institution as defined above came to be disorganized and the whole village split itself in two kado. The process was caused, to a considerable degree, by the complicated localization of the land of every kado. At least the village itself seems to have had to undergo this process irrespective of the policy adopted by the lord.5) By looking at the complication of land localization, the rise and fall of each lineage can be distinctly known. Further examination reveals that every small village itself suffered a historical change as every Ie and extended family followed the ecological process of dominance, invasion, change of dominance in their respective distinct.6) So long as the process of change in village, with village districts as its pilot, can be seen from a historico-dynamic standpoint, the role of the baitoku-bunchi (land purchased by the honke and given to the bunke).7) The extended family system became disorganized in every village-distinct where the extended family institution was developed, accompanied by the baitoku-bunchi.