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The four divisions of society refers to the model of Japanese society during the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
. The names of the four castes; samurai
Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial society Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character ? was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau....
, farmer
Farmer

A farmer is a person who raises living organisms for food or raw materials....
s, artisan
Artisan

An artisan is a skilled manual labor worker who crafts items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewelry, household items, and tools....
s, and merchant
Merchant

Merchants function as professionals who deal with trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to produce profit....
s; were abbreviated to form the term .

ith the creation of the Domains (han) under the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi

was a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, after Hideyoshi's castle....
, all land was confiscated and reissued as fiefdoms to the daimyo
Daimyo

The were powerful territorial lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. The term derives from a shortening of the title , which literally means "great named land" and originally simply referred to the owner of a large estate....
. The small lords, the , were ordered to either give up their swords and rights and remain on their lands as peasants, or move to the castle cities to become paid retainers of the daimyo.






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The four divisions of society refers to the model of Japanese society during the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
. The names of the four castes; samurai
Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial society Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character ? was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau....
, farmer
Farmer

A farmer is a person who raises living organisms for food or raw materials....
s, artisan
Artisan

An artisan is a skilled manual labor worker who crafts items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewelry, household items, and tools....
s, and merchant
Merchant

Merchants function as professionals who deal with trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to produce profit....
s; were abbreviated to form the term .

The four divisions


Samurai

(?)With the creation of the Domains (han) under the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi

was a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, after Hideyoshi's castle....
, all land was confiscated and reissued as fiefdoms to the daimyo
Daimyo

The were powerful territorial lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. The term derives from a shortening of the title , which literally means "great named land" and originally simply referred to the owner of a large estate....
. The small lords, the , were ordered to either give up their swords and rights and remain on their lands as peasants, or move to the castle cities to become paid retainers of the daimyo. Only a few samurai were allowed to remain in the countryside; the . Some 5% of the population were samurai.

Farmers

(?)The were theoretically the second-highest class in the Edo Period, based on the Confucian view that they directly contributed to the welfare of the state. Villages were organized around an elected or hereditary headman, who would then report to local samurai.

Artisans

(?)The were the third-highest class in the Edo Period. Artisans typically lived within larger towns, thus, below the castles towns were divided into four parts: the samurai quarter, the merchant quarter, the artisans quarter, and the hanamachi
Hanamachi

A hanamachi is a Japanese courtesan and geisha district. The word's literal meaning is "flower town". Such districts would contain various okiya ....
, where theaters, brothels and gambling dens were located. In the towns, different ways of life developed, with the chonindo
Chonindo

Chonindo emerged as a way of life of the townspeople during the Edo period of History of Japan. It was a distinct culture that arose in cities such as Osaka, Osaka, Kyoto, Kyoto, and Edo....
 of the artisans and merchants and the bushido
Bushido

, meaning "Way of the Warrior", is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honour until death....
 of the samurai.

Merchants

(?)The were the lowest official class in the Edo Period. Ironically, the merchant class were the wealthiest group, especially as the Edo Period wore on, and many samurai forced into outmoded hereditary stipends had to take debts to keep up.

The peasants, around 80% to 90% of the population, had to carry the burden of the economy. Taxes were paid in rice, 40% to 50% of the harvest, collected from the village
Edo period village

During the Edo period of History of Japan, were self-governing administrative units, led by the . Villages were taxed as a unit, with the village headman responsible for taxation....
 as a community.

The ranking of the divisions was influenced by confucianist thinking
Confucianism

Confucianism is a China Ethics and Philosophy developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . It focuses on human morality and right action....
: The wise ruler was at the top, followed by the farmer who produces the wealth of the society. The artisan only reuses the wealth created, while the merchant only distributes the goods. Interestingly, there is a parallel to the physiocratic school
Physiocrats

The physiocrats were a group of economists who believed that the wealth of nations was derived solely from the value of land agriculture or land development....
 of François Quesnay
François Quesnay

Fran?ois Quesnay was a France economist of the Physiocrats school. He is known for publishing the "Tableau ?conomique" in 1758 , which provided the foundations of the ideas of the Physiocrats....
 and his contemporaries, who influenced the French Ancien Régime
Early Modern France

Early Modern France is the early modern period of French history from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century . During this period France evolved from a feudalism regime to an increasingly centralized state organized around a powerful absolute monarchy that relied on the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the explic...
.

Others

Parts of the population did not belong to any of the four castes at all. On top were the kuge
Kuge

The kuge was a Japanese aristocratic Social class that dominated the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto until the rise of the Shogunate in the 12th century at which point it was eclipsed by the daimyo....
, the Court Nobles
Imperial Court in Kyoto

Imperial Court in Kyoto was the nominal ruling government of Japan from 794 AD until the Meiji Era, in which the court was moved to Tokyo and integrated into the Meiji government....
 in Kyoto
Kyoto

Sorry, no overview for this topic
. They did not possess political influence, but still had a ceremonial function. They were dependent on the shogun, who gave them enough financial support to regain some of the old splendour of the Heian period
Heian period

The is the last division of classical History of Japan, running from 794 to 1185. It is the period in Japanese history when Confucianism and other Chinese culture were at their height....
. With only about 5000 people, they were a rather small group.

Below the system were the Burakumin
Burakumin

, are a Japanese people social minority group. The burakumin are one of the main demographics of Japan, along with the Ainu people of Hokkaido, the Ryukyuans of Okinawa and the Zainichi Korean and Han Chinese descent....
, who were effectively outcasts, because their occupations were taboo under Buddhism
Buddhism

Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices considered by most to be a religionand is based on the teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as "The Buddha" , who was born in what is today Nepal....
 and Shinto
Shinto

is the former state religion of Japan and remains the most common name for the nation's non-Buddhist ethnic religion practices. It was formed from disparate local mythologies, beginning with the Kojiki of 712, into an imperial cult called State Shinto that solidified in the Meiji period....
. They were the undertakers, the slaughterers and the tanners. The hinin, literally "Non-people" were the second group: travelling minstrels and convicted criminals.

See also

  • Feudal Japan hierarchy
    Feudal Japan hierarchy

    There were two major classes in the time of Feudal Japan: the nobles and the peasants. The Nobles included people such as the Emperor and the samurai....