Marriage, family labour and the stem family household: traditional Japan in a comparative perspective

This article discusses which of the family formation patterns described by John Hajnal obtained in traditional Japan. The issue was confronted in 1985 by Arthur Wolf and Susan Hanley, who concluded that 'China is to Japan as Eastern is to Western Europe.' By examining a body of available empirical e vidence concerning proportion married, age at first marriage, celibacy, fam ily life-cycle patterns, servanthood, family labour and coresidence pattern s, it would appear that their claim is misleading. japan's stem family syst em and its corresponding marriage pattern should be seen as representing a type structurally distinct from either the eastern- or the western-European model.