Tokugawa System

Without doubt the most unique law enacted to protect the power of the Tokugawa at Edo was the sankin-kōtai ("alternate attendance") system, which required that all daimyō build and maintain residences in Edo and reside in these expensive mansions every other year. The practical outcome of this law was that daimyō continuously spent huge amounts of their wealth and time traveling to and from Edo and could not watch over their domains as continuously or as thoroughly as they might otherwise have done. Sankin-kōtai, then, meant daimyō from all over Japan and large groups of attendants leaving their han members of each daimyō's family remained in Edo all of the time as "hostages" ensuring that there would be no attempt to overthrow the Tokugawa family. On the positive side this system of "alternate attendance" resulted in the development of roads, and more generally, communication and transportation systems, which would be the envy of Europeans who finally were able to view Japan in the mid-19th century.

Another primary feature of the bakuhan system at its strongest was the division of the society into classes, or perhaps better stated, the absolute definition of an appropriate status for each member of the society. Of course the highest status accrued to the shogun and those samurai of various ranks who were within the inner circle of his political power structure in Edo. And, by extension, in the han the daimyō and then his samurai had highest status. Theoretically these were all military men and therefore were supposed to be ready with the short and long sword to fight for the daimyō or the shogun whenever called upon. They were also the bureaucratic leaders in both bakufu and han and as such collected taxes, enforced laws, and saw to the general running of the central authority and the domains. Their samurai status and the various gradations therein gained them carefully calculated stipends of rice, the primary source of income, which they in turn sold for cash income.

Since rice was very important to the society, peasants who grew it represented the second class. Within this class there were many divisions, and status accrued depending on the amount of rice grown and the political and social roles within a village, with the village head usually the most powerful. Because both the samurai in the castle towns and the peasants in the villages had a great need for every sort of product and service, from farm tools, to swords, clothing, and buildings, the artisans were established as the third class and gained their status from products they made, such as swords, tools, stoves, horseshoes, and pottery. The fourth class was the merchants. This low designation derived from Confucian thinking, which taught that handling of finance and business operations, in general, were defiling. It was certainly not something that a samurai should indulge in. Although the samurai were paid in rice and it was necessary to work through a merchant broker to actually turn the rice that was not consumed into a medium of exchange, the fact remained that this was a dirty business and those who engaged in it, though necessary, were beneath cultivators and producers of products. Other members of the society such as doctors, teachers, artists, clergy, and so forth had status which placed above merchants, and sometimes gave them privileges of samurai. Finally, there were outcasts, handlers of meat and leather, people who cleaned up after executions and did other defiling jobs (see "Buddhism and Shinto"). These people (or hinin "non-humans") were below everyone except for the itinerant entertainers, such as jugglers, street musicians and traveling actors.