ABSTRACT
In Japan the term ‘community’ generally refers to a Gemeinschaft type of social organization. Traditionally, a community was a village made up of fifty to one hundred households, based on living under a system based on of communal land ownership and irrigation. The village was the lowest administrative unit of Tokugawa feudal government, and its basic components were households. There have been two types of village communities. In one, private landownership was recognized and households were accordingly ranked in a hierarchical order. The other was based on an age grading system, with males or females of younger age groups living in one large household.
