On This Day: Japans's Edo society class system is abolished - August 2, 1869
(edited from Wikipedia)
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August 2, 1869 - Japan's Edo society class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.
Edo society refers to the society of Japan under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868.
Edo society was a feudal society with strict social stratification, customs, and regulations intended to promote political stability. Japanese people were assigned into a hierarchy of social classes based on the Four Occupations that were hereditary. The Emperor of Japan and the kuge were the official ruling class of Japan but had no power.
The shōgun of the Tokugawa clan, the daimyō, and their retainers of the samurai class administered Japan through their system of domains. The majority of Edo society were commoners divided into peasant, craftsmen, and merchant classes, and various "untouchable" or Burakumin groups.
The bakumatsu from 1853 on led to growing opposition to the Edo system and it was dismantled after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
Tokugawa class system
The Tokugawa introduced a system of strict social stratification, organizing the majority of Japan's social structure into a hierarchy of social classes. Japanese people were assigned a hereditary class based on their profession, which would be directly inherited by their children, and these classes were themselves stratified with their own hierarchies.
Ethnic minorities
Ethnic minorities in Japan were generally excluded from the class system, though certain individuals in service of the shōgun or daimyō were included. The Tokugawa isolationist policy of sakoku banned most foreigners from entering Japan.
Role of women
A Japanese woman's life varied immensely according to her family's social status. Women in samurai families were expected to submit to their male heads of household, but as they aged, they could become the ranking household member if their husband died. Children were taught to respect both of their parents, even as adults. Women from the lower classes were much less restricted by social expectations and could play an integral part in the family's business. Peasant women were expected to do household chores in the early morning before working in the fields with their male relatives and, regardless of age, were important, working members of their families.
Marriage was not based on romantic attraction. Families tried to use marriage as a way to increase their social standing or, among wealthier groups, to increase one's influence and holdings. Most often, however, marriage occurred between two families of equal status. Female virginity at marriage was important in the samurai classes; it was much less important to the lower classes. After marriage, women were restricted from taking additional sexual partners. Males of the upper classes, however, were able to take concubines and have relations with unmarried women. Divorce was common, and a woman from a poor household could very easily leave her husband and return to her original family.
Decline
The foundation of Edo society was its stable social order, but changes to Japanese society over the next two centuries began to challenge the Tokugawa system. Increasing urbanization and rising consumerism saw wealth become concentrated outside of the samurai class, and their fixed stipends did not increase despite the rising cost of commodities. The increasingly burdensome cost of proper social etiquette led many samurai to become indebted to wealthy urban merchant families. The merchants, in turn, were restricted from showing their wealth for fear of violating the laws that restricted privileges to the samurai class. That created deepening resentment but also increasing interdependence between the two classes.
Some Japanese scholars began to question the Confucian beliefs that provided the foundation of Edo society. Additionally, numerous changes in rural areas increasingly challenged the Tokugawa system. New technology which increased productivity allowed some peasant families to produce a surplus of food, creating a disposable income that could be used to support ventures beyond farming. Some peasants also became indebted to their wealthier neighbors, and more families lost ownership of their land. This sparked resentment that sometimes erupted into violence towards landlords and the village elite.
In 1853, the beginning of the bakumatsu saw Edo society increasingly questioned by Japanese people when Western powers used their technological superiority to force concessions from the Tokugawa in the Unequal treaties. Many Japanese people, including members of the samurai, began to blame the Tokugawa for Japan's "backwardness" and subsequent humiliation. A modernization movement which advocated the abolition of feudalism and return of power to the Imperial Court eventually overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate in the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
The new Meiji government of the Empire of Japan soon abolished the Tokugawa class system that characterized Edo society. The kuge and daimyo classes were merged into the kazoku aristocratic class with class privileges which formed the Meiji oligarchy. Most remaining samurai that did not become kazoku were designated as shizoku, a distinct class without class privileges that was purely a title on the government register. Commoners and the burakumin were merged into a single commoner class without restrictions or distinction for their occupation, though burakumin continued to face discrimination similar to Edo society.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_society#
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