What Is a Family? explores the histories of diverse
households during the Tokugawa period in Japan (1603–1868). The
households studied here differ in locale and in status—from samurai
to outcaste, peasant to merchant—but what unites them is life
within the social order of the Tokugawa shogunate. The
circumstances and choices that made one household unlike another
were framed, then as now, by prevailing laws, norms, and controls
on resources. These factors led the majority to form stem families,
which are a focus of this volume. The essays in this book draw on
rich sources—population registers, legal documents, personal
archives, and popular literature—to combine accounts of collective
practices (such as the adoption of heirs) with intimate portraits
of individual actors (such as a murderous wife). They highlight the
variety and adaptability of households that, while shaped by a
shared social order, do not conform to any stereotypical version of
a Japanese family.
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