This book draws on historical demography to elucidate the regional diversity of the Japanese family and its convergence toward an integrated national family model that heralded the modern era, providing a new image of the family in pre-industrial Japan. The volume challenges the idea of early modern (1600-1870) Japan as a monolithic nation based on the ie, – the stem-family household so often mentioned as the fundamental form of Japanese social organization and enshrined in the Meiji Civil Code – which, in fact, came into being at various locales, at various speeds in the latter half of the 18th and the earlier half of the 19th centuries. In addition, there are several chapters which examine the role of women, either centrally or tangentially.

With contributions by Mary Louise NAGATA, YAMAMOTO Jun, Hiroko COSTANTINI, Stephen ROBERTSON, MIZOGUCHI Tsunetoshi, NAKAJIMA Mitsuhiro, TSUBOUCHI Yoshihiro and MORIMOTO Kazuhiko.