Families and survival

I'm stacking up lots of numbers and statistics around families in my studies at the moment. If you don't watch it some of this stuff can get very 'dry' - I think the Japanese word would be 'omoi' (heavy!).

And it's not always easy to see what lies behind the tables in dusty census reports. For a start by the time numbers get into print they are so 'abstract' that they tell you very little. Averages of aveages of averages! What does it mean to say that the average family size has declined from 5.9 to 2.6 people in eighty years? Actually many Japanese families had live-in servants or employees back in 1920 and these were counted as 'part of the family' so it's not simply that people are having less and less children.

It's really struck me recently just how much our great-grandparents had to rely on their family for survival - much more so in Japan where in the Meiji Era more than 80% were still making their whole living from farming. When all was said and done you had to count on your familiy for something to eat. It's easy to see why rural populations changed so little in Japan over centuries - what was there to be eaten was eaten, there was no extra for additional mouths to consume. On so many hectares you can only grow so much rice. Or wheat.

This is an aspect of the 'average family' we hardly ever think about now. We think of families as parents and children and grandparents who may come together seldom, meet at Christmas or O-bon and pass on property or pay for the next generation's university education. But that's a very modern view of family living. The main purpose of families over the centuries has been to keep the next generation sheltered and fed and alive.