Abstract
This is an analysis of the kinship group structure which focuses upon “kinship association”. It is based on materials from a field survey at Osori District, a mountain village of Izu Peninsula, Shizuoka Prefecture. Such a small village was selected for study because it was expected that it could be possible to depict a model type of this sort of group structure of its geographical setting.
The main problem is to analyse the differences between fixed and fluid patterns of group structure and the gaps between formality and informality of the behavior of its members. In controlling for some basic social factors, differences in the range of inter-marriage areas, positions in social strata, and age, educational level, and social aquaintancies were determined. Analysis on the basis of these factors leads to the following conclusions :
(1) At present, the extended kinship group has lost most of its institutional functions. Its members have two types of consciousness : one dominated by blood relations, the other controlled marriage relations. (2) In each type of these types, there can be seen two distinct pattern of kinship relations, formal and informal. (3) In the informal pattern of kinship relations, there is no observable difference in the intensity of conservatism between blood and marriage types. (4) But the marriage type reveals more frequent conflicts between modern and traditional ideas of appropriate life patterns.
These results are based on statistical operations, but, giving undue weight to that which is merely statistical, these statistical results need more careful sociological interpretation.
