Abstract
This paper reexamined a traditional household ranking system (kakaku) in rural Japan that social scientists have not clearly identified as an independent index from other household stratification structures. By using mainly canonical correlation analysis, this paper also investigated how such a household ranking influenced the actual social order in a small fishing village from 1910 to 1989. Explanatory variables for each household included: kakaku, land ownership, and income. Criterion variables included: appointments to managerial posts of the neighborhood association, the fishery cooperative, and shrine and temple parishioner associations.
In this village, the established order of household ranking was represented in the arrangement of household mortuary tablets (ihai) in the village temple. Such a traditional household ranking system has strongly influenced the village’s social order, especially in the two religious associations and the neighborhood association; however, its effect on the power structure of the fishery cooperative has remained to be weak.
