Japanese family

Ancestors and offspring are linked together by an idea of genealogy, keizu, which rather than relationships based on mere blood inheritance and succession refers to a bond inherent in the maintenance and continuance of the family as an institution.

As official surveys conducted during the early years of the Meiji dynasty demonstrated, the most common family form during the Edo (Tokugawa) period was characterized by patrilocal residence, stem structure, and patrilineal primogeniture,[2] so a set of laws were promulgated institutionalizing this family pattern, beginning with the "Outline of the New Criminal Law" in 1870.

In establishing the ie system, the government moved the ideology of family in the opposite direction of trends resulting from urbanization and industrialization.

From the late 1960s, most marriages in Japan have been based on the mutual attraction of the couple and not the arrangement by the parents (お見合い, omiai)[citation needed].

Other changes, such as an increase in filial violence and school refusal, suggest a breakdown of strong family authority.

Nearly 80% of respondents in a 1986 government survey believed that the ancestral home and family grave should be carefully kept and handed on to one's children.

This sense of family as a unit that continues through time is stronger among people who have a livelihood to pass down, such as farmers, merchants, owners of small companies, and physicians, than among urban salary and wage earners.

The wife might be a "professional housewife", with nearly total responsibility for raising children, ensuring their careers and marriages, running the household, and managing the family budget.

It is increasingly likely that in addition to these family responsibilities, she may also have a part-time job or participate in adult education or other community activities.

As women worked outside of the home with increasing frequency beginning in the 1970s, there was pressure on their husbands to take on more responsibility for housework and child care.

Farm families, who depend on nonfarm employment for most of their income, are also developing patterns of interaction different from those of previous generations.

If a wife had no children, the husband often maintained a concubine, whose offspring succeeded the family's headquarters, thus ensuring its continuation.

When neither the wife nor the concubine gave him a son, the custom allowed the head of the family to adopt a successor.