アジア農村における家族・親族の構造と原理

抄録

Having the belief that we could find varieties of principle and structure in Asian rural societies, the Japanese rural sociologists have been analyzing only Japan. Through these tasks, some sociologists have been able to find the individual characteristics of the Japanese rural social structure, for instance ie (the Japanese family) and dozoku (the Japanese extended family system) and so on. However, such a method might loses sight of homogeneity which exists among Asian countries even though it emphasizes heterogeneity.
In this paper, I would like to take a point of view of seeking identity rather than variety, and homogeneity rather than heterogeneity. It is my viewpoint in this paper that the understanding of the Japanese rural society must come after understanding the other Asian countries.
I have adopted the principle of lineage of the family and kinship system which are thought to be the fundamental structure of the Asian rural societies as the criterion for finding identity between the societies. Then we can devide Asian rural societies into two areas A, an Area of Bilateral System, and B, an Area of Unilineal.System. Most countries in the south west islands belong to the A-Area, and the countries in the north east continent belong to B-Area. While Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia and so on would be included in the former area, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, China and Korea and so on are the latter. This paper seeks to identity which area Japan belongs to.
The case studies are as follows.
A-Area : Some villages in Indonesia and Philippines have been considered as the case studies. In this area, the family type is that of nuclear family. It cannot be determined whether male or female lineage system are dominant. The way of living might indicate the superiority of the male (patrilocal). Marriages between cousins are more frequent. The kinship structure is the bilateral system. The nuclear group of the kinship system is the sibling group. We cannot decide whether the patrilineage or matrilineage is dominant. But in the modernized areas, patrilineage may be dominant.
B-Area : Some cases in India, Vietnam and Korea have been considered. The family type compared with A-Area has the characteristics of the extended family system. We will give attention to the compound family in India, the polygamy in Vietnam, and the clan in Korea. The kinship system is the unilineal system.
C-Area : The case of Japan. The established theory which has been dominant concerning family and kinship was that ie and dozoku were in the partiunilineal system. If it were true, Japan should be included in B-Area. However, when we study the Japanese rural society compared with other Asian societies we could find in Japan the factors of both A and B areas.
For testing this hypothesis, I have studied Kunimitsu village in Noto Peninsula, Ishikawa Prefecture.
The social nucleus of this village is the ie..Ie can be recognized as ie when it exists in both tsura institution, a kind of village community, and ikke organization, a kind of kinship system. The nucleus of this ie is oya (parents), in this case especially the father (the mother follows the father).
From the oya, with the father as the nucleus, the oya-ko relationships (the parents-children relationships) extend in the direction of both patrilineage and matrilineage. Thus I can define the kinship organization in this village as a parti-prior-bilateral system of kinship.