The Social Organization

The late Professor Fiske, in his Outline of cosmic Philosophy, made a very interesting remark about societies give care those of China, ancient Egypt, and ancient Assyria. I am expressing, he said, something more than an analogy, I am describing a real homology so far as concerns the process of development,when I say that these comm unities simulated sense modalityrn atomic number 63an nations, much in the same trend that a tree-fern of the carboniferous period simulated the exogenous trees of the present while. So far as this is lawful of China, it is likewise true of Japan. The spirit of the old Nipponese fiat was no more than an amplification of the constitution of the family,the patriarchal family of primitive times. All modern Western societies catch been developed out of a like patriarchal condition the archean civilizations of Greece and Rome were similarly constructed, upon a lesser scale.But the patriarchal family in Europe was disintegrated thousands of years ago the gens and the curia dissolved and disappeared the originally distinct classes became fused together and a center reorganization of society was gradually 230 effected, everywhere resulting in the substitution of voluntary for compulsory cooperation. Industrial types of society developed and a state-religion overshadowed the ancient and exclusive local cults. But society in Japan never, money box within the present era, became one coherent body, never developed beyond the clan-stage.It remained a loose chain reactor of clan-groups, or tribes, each religiously and administratively independent of the rest and this huge agglomerate was kept together, non by voluntary cooperation, scarce by strong compulsion. Down to the period of Meiji, and heretofore for some time afterward, it was liable to split and fall asunder at any moment that the central coercive personnel showed signs of weakness. We may call it a feudalism but it resembled European feudalism only as a tree-fern resemb les a tree.Let us first briefly consider the nature of the ancient Japanese society. Its original unit was not the household, but the patriarchal family,that is to say, the gens or clan, a body of hundreds or thousands of persons claiming descent from a common ancestor, and so religiously united by a common ancestor-worship,the cult of the Ujigami. As I have said before, in that location were 2 classes of these patriarchal families the O-uji, or Great Clans and the Ko-uji, or Little Clans.The lesser were branches of the greater, and subordinate to 231 them,so that the group formed by an O-uji with its Ko-uji might be loosely compared with the Roman curia or Greek phratry. Large bodies of serfs or slaves appear to have been attached to the various great Uji and the number of these, even at a very early period, seems to have exceeded that of the members of the clans proper. The distinct names given to these subject-classes indicate different grades and consanguineousds of servitud e.One name was tomobe, signifying bound to a place, or district another was yakabe, signifying bound to a family a terzetto was kakibe, signifying bound to a close, or estate yet another and more general term was tami, which anciently signified dependants, but is now used in the meaning of the English word folk. There is slight doubt that the bulk of the passel were in a condition of servitude, and that there were umpteen forms of servitude. Mr.Spencer has pointed out that a general attribute between thraldom and serfdom, in the sense commonly attached to each of those terms, is by no means easy to establish the real state of a subject-class, especially in early forms of society, depending much more upon the character of the master, and the actual conditions of social development, than upon matters of privilege and legislation. In speaking of early Japanese institutions, the distinction is occasionicularly hard to draw we are still but little informed as to the condition of the subject 232 classes in ancient times.It is safe to assert, however, that there were then really but two great classes,a ruling oligarchy, divided into many grades and a subject population, also divided into many grades. Slaves were tattooed, either on the face or some part of the body, with a mark indicating their ownership. Until within late(a) years this system of tattooing appears to have been maintained in the province of Satsuma,where the marks were put especially upon the custody and in many other provinces the lower classes were generally marked by a tattoo on the face.Slaves were bought and sold like cattle in early times, or presented as tribute by their owners,a practice constantly referred to in the ancient records. Their unions were not recognized a fact which reminds us of the distinction among the Romans between connubium and contubernium and the children of a slave-mother by a tolerant father remained slaves. * In the seventh century, however, private slaves we re stated state-property, and great numbers were 233 then emancipated,including nearly allprobably allwho were artizans or followed useful callings.Gradually a large class of freedmen came into existence but until modern times the great mass of the common people appear to have remained in a condition analogous to serfdom. The greater number certainly had no family names,which is considered evidence of a former slave-condition. Slaves proper were registered in the names of their owners they do not seem to have had a cult of their own,in early times, at least. But, prior to Meiji, only the aristocracy, samurai, doctors, and teacherswith perhaps a fewer other exceptionscould use a family name.Another queer bit of evidence or, the subject, furnished by the late Dr. Simmons, relates to the mode of wearing the hair among the subject-classes. Up to the time of the Ashikaga shogunate (1334 A. D. ), all classes excepting the nobility, samurai, Shinto priests, and doctors, shaved the greater part of the head, and wore queues and this fashion of wearing the hair was called yakko-atama or dorei-atamaterms signifying slave-head, and indicating that the fashion originated in a period of servitude. *In the year 645, the Emperor Kotoku issued the following edict on the subject The law of men and women shall be that the children innate(p) of a free man and a free woman shall last to the father if a free man takes to wife a slave-woman, her children shall belong to the mother if a free woman marries a slave-man, the children shall belong to the father if they are slaves of two houses, the children shall belong to the mother. The children of temple-serfs shall follow the rule for freemen. But in regard to others who live slaves, they shall be treated according to the rule for slaves. Astons translation of the Nihongi, Vol. II, p. 202. About the origin of Japanese slavery, much remain to be learned.There are evidences of successive immigrations and it is possible that some, at least, of the earlier Japanese settlers were reduced by later invaders to the status of servitude. Again, 234 there was a considerable immigration of Koreans and Chinese, some of whom might have voluntarily sought-after(a) servitude as a refuge from worse evils. But the subject remains obscure. We know, however, that degradation to slavery was a common punishment in early times also, that debtors unable to pay became the slaves of their creditors also, that thieves were sentenced to become the slaves of those whom they had robbed. Evidently there were great differences in the conditions of servitude.The more unfortunate class of slaves were scarcely better off than domestic animals but there were serfs who could not be bought or sold, nor employed at other than special work these were of kin to their lords, and may have entered voluntarily into servitude for the sake of sustenance and protection. Their relation to their masters reminds us of that of the Roman leaf node to the R oman patron. *An edict issued by the Empress Jito, in 690, enacted that a father could sell his son into real slavery but that debtors could be sold