Marriage and Household in Early Modern Northeastern Japan: Rural-Urban Similarity and Diversity

Regional variation is an integral part of Japanese historical demography. At least three different patterns of population and family are suggested to have coexisted in three geographic boundaries in early modern Japan: northeast, central, and southeast. However, the evidence for the three patterns are either based on macro level studies or on micro level studies of a few villages in each region. This paper challenges this general categorization and tries to examine "northeastern" pattern of marriage and family using household registers 1716-1870 from diverse economic settings: two rice farming villages, one village enriched by cash crop agriculture, and one booming local post town. We apply the event history analysis model proposed by the Eurasia project for examining marriage responses to economic stress and household context. The results of this study should provide more careful examination of the northeastern pattern and marriage in its relation to household socioeconomic status and context at various stages of local economic and population development.