Long way to headship, short way to retirement: Adopted sons in a northeastern village in pre-lndustrial Japan

Abstract

The article examines adoption practices from the perspective of the individual life course using a longitudinal population register (1716–1869) from an agricultural village in northeastern Japan. Adoption was never rare and was used to ensure succession in son-less households. A series of life-table analyses shows that adoption did not mean automatic headship. Adopted sons were often sent back (divorced) to their original households before acquiring headship. If they attained headship, they did not keep it as long as native sons. These results suggest that adoption mattered a great deal to villagers and to kinship organization, as folklore studies also attest.