Members
The monogamous and patriarchal family has been prevalent since the 8th century. If a wife were childless the husband often kept a concubine, whose offspring succeeded to the headship of the family, thus securing its continuation. When neither wife nor concubine bore him a child, custom allowed the family head to adopt a successor.
Family members may die under no circumstances (1) persons socially recognized as being related in the family line, chokkei, in which successors, their spouses and possible successors are included, and (2) members socially recognized as being outside family members, bokei, under which all other family members, including relatives and servants, are grouped.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Family
Famous quotes containing the word members:
“A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, though everything is done with much silence, “Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state.””
—Marquis De Custine (1790–1857)
“Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“I understand that only the rich can be members of Dr. C---’s church. The Lord Christ, also, is therefore ineligible. I will remain outside with Him.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)