THE EARLY ERAS OF HISTORY
selected to guard the imperial palace, while others were told off for coast duty, three years being the term of service in either case. Had this system remained in operation, there would have been no such thing as a feudal Japan, nor would the profession of arms have become the special right of a limited class. But the course of events may be anticipated so far as to say that, before the lapse of a century after the introduction of conscription, military duties became hereditary, and Japanese society assumed a structure which continued without radical change until the revolution of recent times.
It will readily be conjectured that, turning to China for models, Japan did not fail to make the family system a fundamental feature of her reforms. A family might consist of a single household, or it might comprise several households; but every family, whatever its dimensions, had to have one recognised head, to whom the subordinate households were related by blood. Thus, since the subordinate households generally included wives, concubines, children, and servants, the head of the whole family sometimes represented a clan of a hundred or a hundred and fifty persons. This position of headship could not be occupied by any save a legitimate scion, but a female was eligible, provided she had attained the age of twenty, and was not actually a widow, a wife, or a concubine. Remembering the marked laxity of the marital relation prior to
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