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The kazoku, literally the "flowery lineage," was the hereditary peerage
of Japan that existed between 1869 and 1947.
The Meiji oligarchs, as part of their Westernizing reforms, merged the
kuge (the court nobility in Kyoto) and the daimyo (or feudal lords) into a
single aristocratic class in 1869. Ito Hirobumi, one of the leaders of the
Meiji Restoration and later the principal author of the 1889 Constitution of
the Empire of Japan, intended the kazoku to serve a political and social
bulwark for the "restored" emperor and the Japanese imperial institution.
In addition to the existing Japanese nobility, the Meiji leadership also
awarded kazoku status to those regarded as having performed outstanding
service to the country. In 1884, the government took the further step of
dividing the kazoku into five ranks explicitly based on the British peerage:
(1) prince or duke (koshaku), (2) marquis (also koshaku but written with a
different Chinese character), (3) count (hakushaku), (4) viscount (shishaku),
and (5) baron (danshaku).
As in British peerage, only the actual holder of a title and his consort
were considered part of the kazoku. The holders of the top two ranks, prince
and marquis, automatically became members of the House of Peers upon their
succession or upon majority (in the case of peers who were minors). Counts,
viscounts, and barons elected up to 150 representatives from their ranks to
the House of Peers.
Titles passed according to primogeniture, although kazoku houses
frequently adopted sons from collateral branches of their own houses and
other kazoku houses to prevent their lines from dying out. A 1904 amendment
to the 1889 Imperial Household Law, allowed minor princes (o) of the
imperial family to renounce their imperial status and become peers (in their
own right) or heirs to childless peers. Initially there were 11 non-imperial
princes or dukes, 24 marquis, 76 counts, 324 viscount, and 74 barons, for a
total of 509 peers. By 1928, through promotions and new creations there were
a total of 954 peers: 18 non-imperial princes or dukes, 40 marquis, 108
counts, 379 viscounts, and 409 barons.
Rank distribution for kazuko houses of kuge descent depended on the
highest possible office to which its ancesters had been entiteld in the
imperial court. Thus, the heirs of the five regent houses (go-seeke) of the
Fujiwara dynasty, Konoe, Takatsukasa, Kujo, Ichijo, and Nijo, all became
princes. The heads of other Fujiwara branches became marquises. Excluding
the Tokugawa, kazoku rank distribution for the former daimyo depended on
rice revenue: those with 150,00 koku or more became marquises, those with
50,000 koku or more become counts, etc. The former shogun, Tokugawa
Yoshinobu became a prince, the heads of primary Tokugawa branch houses (shimpan
daimyo) became marquises, and the heads of the secondary branches became
counts.
The Constitution of Japan abolished the kazoku and ended the use of all
titles of nobility or rank, outside the imperial family. Nonetheless, the
descendants of former kazuko families continue to occupy prominent roles in
Japanese society and industry.
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