Changes

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.

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). As evocatively worded by one scholar, "the samurai were not dissatisfied with the premises of a social system in which, after all, they formed the ruling class, but they were enraged by the discrepancy between the theoretical elevation of their status and the reality of their poverty."<ref>Schirokauer, Gay, Lurie, ''A Brief History of Japanese Civilization'', Fourth Edition, 154.</ref>

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). As evocatively worded by one scholar, "the samurai were not dissatisfied with the premises of a social system in which, after all, they formed the ruling class, but they were enraged by the discrepancy between the theoretical elevation of their status and the reality of their poverty."<ref>Schirokauer, et. al., 154.</ref>

According to some sources, the flattening of population growth in the 18th to early 19th centuries was caused largely by the maxing-out of agricultural lands, and of the production possible with the technology available at that time. With agricultural production static, many peasant families turned to limiting the size of their households in order to maintain or raise their quality of living. Rural households in at least one domain shrank from an average of 7 family members to 4.25 over the course of the period; infanticide, known as ''mabiki'' after the practice of thinning rice crops within a paddy, was widely practiced.<ref name=craig79/> Whether because of infanticide, hunger, or disease, throughout the archipelago, even among elites, more than fifty percent of children died before the age of five.<ref>[[Anne Walthall]], "Introduction: Tracking People in the Past," Walthall (ed.), ''The Human Tradition in Modern Japan'', Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), xv.</ref>

According to some sources, the flattening of population growth in the 18th to early 19th centuries was caused largely by the maxing-out of agricultural lands, and of the production possible with the technology available at that time. With agricultural production static, many peasant families turned to limiting the size of their households in order to maintain or raise their quality of living. Rural households in at least one domain shrank from an average of 7 family members to 4.25 over the course of the period; infanticide, known as ''mabiki'' after the practice of thinning rice crops within a paddy, was widely practiced.<ref name=craig79/> Whether because of infanticide, hunger, or disease, throughout the archipelago, even among elites, more than fifty percent of children died before the age of five.<ref>[[Anne Walthall]], "Introduction: Tracking People in the Past," Walthall (ed.), ''The Human Tradition in Modern Japan'', Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), xv.</ref>