ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a historical overview of family and gender in classical Japan, covering from the Jomon to the Heian periods. It shows that the status of women and the characteristics of the classical Japanese family were different from those which developed under the Chinese dynasties of the same time periods. The archaeologist Tsude Hiroshi argued that the average height of men had been 8 percent greater than that of women since the time of homo erectus and continued to be so throughout the Jōmon, Yayoi, and Kofun periods. Kobayashi Yukio, the premier archeologist of the early and mid-twentieth century, argued that one of the reasons why burial mounds were built was the "emergence of hereditary chieftain rights", and that Kofun period society was patrilineal. During the Heian period, it became customary in aristocratic society to inherit socio-political status through the paternal lineage.
