ABSTRACT
Within the frame of a village community, each household has several other households closely connected to it in daily life as well as through economic activities. This chapter discusses three major principles which unite particular sets of households as a local corporate group: dozoku, oyako-kankei and kumi. Dozoku is a set of households, consisting of the main household and branch household(s). One of the characteristics of the dozoku organization is its inclusion of non-kin members. The inclusion of households of servants and tenants in the dozoku organization was closely related to the employment and land-tenure systems. Another relationship between a set of households, closely related to the dozoku conception, was oyako-kankei. The composition of the dozoku is indeed sufficiently flexible to meet varied economic conditions. The degree of exclusiveness of the kumi is relative to the amount of economic activity in which the villagers as a group are involved.
