How was feudal Japanese society structured?

Most people today associate the word 'samurai' with being a warrior. Initially, this was true.

They evolved from provincial warrior elites. However, as the influence and power of these warriors increased, they developed into their own social group.

Therefore, 'samurai' became a level of society that you were born into, not a career that you chose.

As a result, women and children were born into the samurai class, even if they never became warriors.

However, the most important people in this social group were the trained samurai soldiers.

Only about 10% of Japanese society were samurai, but due to their military dominance, they were very influential.

As a result, other members of society were meant to treat the samurai with a great deal of respect.

If you encountered a samurai in the street, you had to bow towards them politely.

If a person from the lowest of the social classes failed to do this, the samurai were legally allowed to kill them.

This was a practice known as kiri-sute gomen (permission to cut and leave), which allowed samurai to kill those of a lower class who showed disrespect.

However, it was regulated by strict rules and was not carried out regularly. In fact, samurai could face severe consequences if the killing was deemed to be unjustified.

As a result, it was more a deterrent to disrespect rather than a commonly practiced law.

As trained soldiers, the samurai were loyal to a particular warlord, known as a daimyo.

Samurai could change daimyo if they wanted to, but it was expected that they remain loyal to one for as long as possible to demonstrate their sense of honour.  

There were several hundred daimyo across Japan, who controlled their own small lands, but they all swore a similar loyalty to the shogun, the supreme military commander nominated by the emperor.

Most of Japanese society was made up of farmers and peasants. Even though these people had little power, they were theoretically the most important people in Japan, because they grew all of the food for the rest of society.

They were under the protection of the samurai, who in return expected a portion of the crops as tax or tribute.

Most peasants and farmers were quite poor, since most of the crops they grew were taken by the samurai and the daimyo in the form of tax.

Today, people who spend their lives developing creative skills are held in quite high regard, particularly artisans creating essential goods like weapons and armor.

However, in feudal Japanese society, they were actually looked down upon. The prevailing belief was that making items from scratch was more honorable. 

Unfortunately, craftsmen took goods made by others, such as wood and metal, to craft new items. 

In Japanese society, this was often perceived as laziness, leading to their placement at the lower end of the social hierarchy.

In many Japanese communities, craftsmen lived in a segregated area, away from the samurai and the daimyo.

However, the status of these classes improved over time, especially during the Edo period, when the economy grew, and the merchant class became wealthier and more influential.

Merchants were regarded as the lowest class in Japanese society. Similarly to craftsmen, who were deemed 'lazy' for not producing their own goods, merchants were viewed even more negatively.

As they produced nothing themselves and merely sold items made by others, they were often perceived as 'parasites' and unscrupulous profiteers by the rest of society.

They were also segregated from the rest of the town and the samurai class refused to interact with them directly, unless it was absolutely necessary.

Even though these four classes were supposed to encompass every person in Japanese society, there were groups of people who did not actually fit.

An example of this was the person of the shogun. Even though he was one of the daimyo, his power exceeded that of all other daimyo and, in most cases, was even greater than the emperor himself.

As a result, the normal rules didn't apply to him, and everyone else in society had to treat him with the greatest respect.

The emperor was also a person who didn't actually fit into one of the four classes.

The Japanese believed that the emperor was actually a divine figure, a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, which gave him a sacred status.

As a result, he was above the system entirely.

However, since the shogun actually controlled the military power in the country, the emperor was usually only second in importance, under the shogun. 

In Japanese society, another significant group that did not conform to the four-tiered hierarchy were the religious figures: Buddhist monks and Shinto priests.

As they dedicated their lives to seclusion and their faith, they did not function within the confines of the hierarchical structure.

Unlike the emperor and shogun, who were considered 'above' the system, monks and priests typically existed 'outside' of it.

In addition to the recognized classes, there were individuals who lived 'beneath' these classes and were treated with even less respect than merchants. 

The burakumin, a group deemed 'unclean' and existing outside the four primary classes, faced substantial discrimination and prejudice.

Those whose professions required contact with deceased people or animals were labeled 'unclean' and were treated with disdain.

This category included professions such as butchers, undertakers, executioners, and tanners, the latter dealing with animal hides.