Members
The monogamous and patriarchal family has been prevalent since the 8th century. If a wife were childless the husband often kept a concubine, whose offspring succeeded to the headship of the family, thus securing its continuation. When neither wife nor concubine bore him a child, custom allowed the family head to adopt a successor.
Family members may die under no circumstances (1) persons socially recognized as being related in the family line, chokkei, in which successors, their spouses and possible successors are included, and (2) members socially recognized as being outside family members, bokei, under which all other family members, including relatives and servants, are grouped.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Family
Famous quotes containing the word members:
“The members of a body-politic call it “the state” when it is passive, “the sovereign” when it is active, and a “power” when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title “people,” and they refer to one another individually as “citizens” when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as “subjects” when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“...wasting the energies of the race by neglecting to develop the intelligence of the members to whom its most precious resources must be entrusted, already seems a childish absurdity.”
—Anna Eugenia Morgan (1845–1909)
“[T]here is no breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining its members in other terms.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)