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Samurai are believed to have comprised, during the Edo period, roughly six percent of the population of the archipelago, while merchants or townsmen (''chônin'') comprised another 7-8%, and peasants or villagers (''hyakushô'') the remaining 87% or so.<ref name=craig71/>, while roughly two percent of the archipelago's inhabitants were considered ''[[eta]]'' or ''[[hinin]]'', classes of outcastes associated with physical and spiritual pollution.<ref name=brief135>Schirokauer, et al., 135.</ref> Government work was the chief avenue seen as an honorable path for samurai, while most forms of merchant or artisan (craftsman/manufacture) work, as well as agricultural labor, were seen as being beneath them, unfitting for someone of samurai status. Since samurai were so numerous, however, and there were only so many government positions, by [[1705]], it is believed that roughly one-quarter of the shogun's vassals were unemployed.<ref>Craig, Teruko (trans.). ''Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai''. University of Arizona Press, 1988. p.xii.</ref>
Samurai are believed to have comprised, during the Edo period, roughly six percent of the population of the archipelago, while merchants or townsmen (''chônin'') comprised another 7-8%, and peasants or villagers (''hyakushô'') the remaining 87% or so.<ref name=craig71/>, while roughly two percent of the archipelago's inhabitants were considered ''[[eta]]'' or ''[[hinin]]'', classes of outcastes associated with physical and spiritual pollution.<ref name=brief135>Schirokauer, et al., 135.</ref> Government work was the chief avenue seen as an honorable path for samurai, while most forms of merchant or artisan (craftsman/manufacture) work, as well as agricultural labor, were seen as being beneath them, unfitting for someone of samurai status. Since samurai were so numerous, however, and there were only so many government positions, by [[1705]], it is believed that roughly one-quarter of the shogun's vassals were unemployed.<ref>Craig, Teruko (trans.). ''Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai''. University of Arizona Press, 1988. p.xii.</ref>
Society was, in theory at least, divided into four (plus) status categories, a structure often referred to as the ''mibun seido'' (social status system). The key four status categories were, in descending order of regard: (1) the samurai, who ruled, (2) the farmers, fishermen, and other villagers who produced food, (3) the craftsmen and artisans who produced useful products, (4) the merchants who produced nothing. Of course, there were also those who fell outside of these categories, including chiefly the Imperial family and court nobility, at the top, Shinto and Buddhist clergy, also officially held in high regard, and, [[kabuki]] actors, [[courtesans]], and other sorts of entertainers, who were held in low regard, with the ''hinin'', ''eta'', and other sorts of outcastes at the bottom of the pile. To a certain extent, many of those at the bottom were considered in such low regard because of notions of spiritual pollution - the ''eta'' and ''hinin'' included those who handled skins, meat, and dead bodies. However, the simple notion of being outside the normal realms was seen as spiritually or magically dangerous, as upsetting the natural order by existing outside of it; in a sense it was self-reinforcing. Since popular theatre grew out of rituals associated with liminal spaces and connection with the otherworldly, actors and entertainers were seen as somewhat 'other' as well. On a more practical level, it has also been suggested that entertainers were categorized into a particularly low status because their activities, being more ephemeral, were more difficult to tax (in contrast, for example, to agricultural or manufacturing output).
These were not simply conceptual social categories, however. They played a role, too, in the feudal hierarchical structure of the Tokugawa state, as members of each class were responsible for performing their proper duties or obligations (''yaku'') to the state.<ref>Ikegami, 148.</ref>
Tokugawa official Neo-Confucianism dictated that if everyone were to perform their proper role in society, all would fall into place, and prosperity would result. To that end, the shogunate, as well as the ''daimyô'' and other authorities, repeatedly issued sumptuary laws and the like, mandating people to behave in accordance with their station. In reality, however, there was much crossover between statuses, as wealthy merchants bought lavish things, poor samurai struggled to afford to keep up the appearances expected of their status, and so forth. Unemployed and underemployed samurai regularly attended kabuki, the pleasure quarters, and other low-class entertainments despite it being forbidden for them, and people of all classes mingled with one another within artistic and cultural contexts.
Samurai earned their incomes as stipends paid by their lords in fixed amounts of rice (measured in ''[[koku]]''). Roughly 80% of ''daimyô'' were paying out stipends to their retainers by 1700, and roughly 90% of samurai were reliant on such stipends by 1800, with only ten percent earning their incomes more directly, locally.<ref name=brief133/> This latter group, in many cases, earned their incomes more directly on account of being subinfeudated with their own sub-domains. Though most ''han'' eliminated sub-fiefs and turned all their retainers over to stipends during the 17th century, some, such as [[Tosa han]], allowed as many as 400 senior retainers to maintain their own sub-fiefs as late as the beginning of the Meiji period; those men levied taxes on the peasants on their lands and received incomes directly in that manner.<ref>Roberts, ''Mercantilism'', 89-90.</ref> As stipends were not reassessed and rarely increased (without a promotion in rank or position), by the late Edo period, many samurai became impoverished, even as many members of the commoner townsman class (''[[chonin|chônin]]'') became wealthier and wealthier, earning their incomes off economic activity (i.e. manufacture and trade).
Samurai earned their incomes as stipends paid by their lords in fixed amounts of rice (measured in ''[[koku]]''). Roughly 80% of ''daimyô'' were paying out stipends to their retainers by 1700, and roughly 90% of samurai were reliant on such stipends by 1800, with only ten percent earning their incomes more directly, locally.<ref name=brief133/> This latter group, in many cases, earned their incomes more directly on account of being subinfeudated with their own sub-domains. Though most ''han'' eliminated sub-fiefs and turned all their retainers over to stipends during the 17th century, some, such as [[Tosa han]], allowed as many as 400 senior retainers to maintain their own sub-fiefs as late as the beginning of the Meiji period; those men levied taxes on the peasants on their lands and received incomes directly in that manner.<ref>Roberts, ''Mercantilism'', 89-90.</ref> As stipends were not reassessed and rarely increased (without a promotion in rank or position), by the late Edo period, many samurai became impoverished, even as many members of the commoner townsman class (''[[chonin|chônin]]'') became wealthier and wealthier, earning their incomes off economic activity (i.e. manufacture and trade).
