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Origin of Large Households and Duolocal Residence in Central Japan 1
Author(s) -
BEFU HARUMI
Publication year - 1968
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1968.70.2.02a00070
Subject(s) - residence , wife , demographic economics , extant taxon , geography , spouse , demography , socioeconomics , sociology , economics , political science , law , evolutionary biology , biology , anthropology
Until about seventy‐five years ago there existed a small number of communities in central Japan where, with the exception of the household head who married virilocally, man and wife lived separately for life with their consanguines in households averaging fifteen members. Examination of hypotheses offered by various scholars to explain the large household size and the duolocal residence finds them wanting. It is suggested instead that the twin conditions of the absence of branching (brought about by demographic stagnation) and the necessity of maintaining a large household containing many collaterals (necessitated by certain productive and consumptive requirements) produced conditions in which coresidence of collateral spouses in a household was maladapted; that the existing prevalence of duopatrilocal residence in this area provided a readily available base from which to proceed to a permanent duolocal system; and that the historically antecedent dozoku structure, with its strong emphasis on patrilineally transmitted authority, would have worked to prevent the household head from adopting duolocal residence along with other men.