My own recent research on Sengoku and the transition to Edo suggests that there was a population boom previous to or during Edo. I think the way that probably works out is that, without the wars drawing down the population, a stable level of reproduction resulted in a whole lot more people running around. Just about every source that deals with government and/or law notes that the Edo government was constantly attempting to control this huge population and not really doing all that well, despite the massive and largely successful social re-engineering that Hideoshi pushed through. So I suspect that whatever methods of contraception/abortion were available would have been either accepted or outright encouraged.
Meiji, though, was the beginning of nationalism and expansionism running hand in hand. It makes a lot of sense that the PTB would want to pump up the population again.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2006-07-30 06:44 pm (UTC)My own recent research on Sengoku and the transition to Edo suggests that there was a population boom previous to or during Edo. I think the way that probably works out is that, without the wars drawing down the population, a stable level of reproduction resulted in a whole lot more people running around. Just about every source that deals with government and/or law notes that the Edo government was constantly attempting to control this huge population and not really doing all that well, despite the massive and largely successful social re-engineering that Hideoshi pushed through. So I suspect that whatever methods of contraception/abortion were available would have been either accepted or outright encouraged.
Meiji, though, was the beginning of nationalism and expansionism running hand in hand. It makes a lot of sense that the PTB would want to pump up the population again.