家族・親族集団の国際比較 (1)

-タイ国と日本-

抄録

This paper attempts to delineate cultural similarities and differences of the Thai and Japanese family and kin group. The description will provide a good illustration of different two bilateral societies.
Although family as social groups may take various forms in Thailand and Japan, notion of family differs considerably to one another. The crucial point is that concept of family in Thailand can be understood as a radial extension of kinship core-an analytical unit consisting of parents and unmarried children, whereas Japanese concept, despite of the similar features at its basis, traditionally put an extreme emphasis on a lineal extension of kinship core and the term ie is used to refer to such a particular aspect of Japanese family.
On these contrasting patterns of family mentioned above, in this paper Thai multihousehold compound and Japanese dozoku are analysed with respect to family partition and reorganization, structure and function, group-duration, and membership. Major difference is that the multihoushold compound is a special form of family which is organized simply around parent-child relationship and functions exclusively in the domestic realm, while dozoku is a kin group which transcends any forms of domestic group, being organized around descent among ie and functioning in the politico-jural realm as well. Since Japanese society lacks any unilinear principle, it would be reasonable to regard dozoku as a variation of non-unilinear descent group.
The unique development of a descent group in the bilateral Japanese society could be brought to light by further comparative studies on the formation of family patterns of Thailand and Japan. A suggested hypothesis here is that Japanese family has ever developed with a direction toward strengthening lineality, whereas Thai family toward the opposit, weakening lineality if Thai had ever such notion of lineality.