近世瀬戸内海村における養子・「所縁育」の性格と機能

―周防国熊毛郡曽根村水場浦旧藩戸籍控の研究―

抄録

This study aims to clarify the character and function of family life in a seaside commercial village named Sonemura Village, Kumage County (in present day Yamaguchi Prefecture), during the period from the final years of the Tokugawa era through the early years of the Meiji Restoration. The materials used in this study consist of two family registries, with particular focus on the adoption and the relation between the adopted child and the dependent members of the household (known as shoen’iku).

This research also aims to correlate these family registries with the database of religious and population registries (Shumon Aratame Chō Database, SACDB), in order to analyze their microhistory, using information such as people’s lifespan, age of marriage, number of siblings, etc..

From the registries it can be determined how easy it could be for any family could set up branch families, which were rare in traditional villages. The second volume of the registries of Mizubaura shows that the village consisted of newcomers driven there by famine. Under good conditions, day laborers could live comfortably, so the village attracted young men who dreamed of having families, accepted them and thereby increasing the village population. After the 1840’s Tempo Famine, moving from villages nearby accelerated. The eldest son, even the second and third son could set up branches of the family. Because of an increased number of newly established families and some families that failed to produce offspring due later-life marriages, gradually adoption became an acceptable solution.

Examples of sakuyoshi (tentative adoption) suggest that families functioned as “small enterprises” that tried hard to improve their families’ circumstances. On the other hand, shoen’iku represented the support practices in which the old-comers would help new-comers to live independently.