Abstract
This paper aims to find the function and the characteristics of the rural family in modern Japan from the point view of the rural women’s position and role. We have called Japanese pattern of the rural family as IE. IE has been regarded as patriarchal or feudalistic because of women’s low position in the family and a head’s absolute authority over family members. According to this understanding , the rise of women’s independence has a probability of disorganization IE. But IE can be given a definition as the small organization of management run by family members’ labour force integrated for subsistence. According to this definition, IE’s logic should coexist with individual’s one. This paper examines the tendency of women’s independence in IE as the small organization of management, analyzing a research of women in full-time farm households in Shonai District, Yamagata Prefecture in 1998.
