Yorioya-Yoriko (寄親・寄子)
Yorioya-Yoriko refers to the master-servant relationship similar to the parent-child relationship created in medieval Japan or the relationship of the guardian and the protected person based on the master-servant relationship. The person who provided protection was called Yorioya (shinan, soja), and the protected person was called Yoriko (Yoriki, doshin).
"Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Japan" (Japanese-Portuguese dictionary published 1603-1604) explains that Yorioya was 'a person that a certain person depended upon and clung to in a certain lord's Kachu (family-related communities which existed in the late Muromachi period and the Azuchi-Momoyama period) or in other places' and that Yoriko was ' a person dependent on and under the patronage of others, or a person under control of others.'
Essentially, the Yorioya-Yoriko relationship was a private contractual relationship, but during the Sengoku period (period of warring states) (Japan), it gradually became semi-compulsory.
Kiko of the Nara period and Yoriudo of the Heian period had similar characteristics as Yoriko. In the Kamakura period, the Soryo system (the eldest son system for the succession of the head of the family) was established in the samurai world, and at first Yoriko meant the child born out of wedlock who followed the eldest child ("Kamakura Bakufu Tsuika Ho" - additional laws applied by Kamakura Bakufu). But soon unrelated samurai were treated as Yoriko, and eventually when people referred to Yoriko, they meant the latter. Yoriko took over the burden of kuji (public duties) from the eldest child and was guaranteed the status and the shoryo (territory) in return.
During the Muromachi period, jizamurai (local samurai) became involved with the local dominant samurai, forming the Yorioya-Yoriko relationship, while shugo daimyo (military governors) and Sengoku daimyo (Japanese territorial lord in the Sengoku period) acknowledged their authority as Yorioya in the process of drawing dominant samurai under their jurisdiction and they also established the Yorioya-Yoriko relationship with them to include them amongst their vassals. There were a wide range of Yorioya/Yoriko relationships in those days, from a temporary relationship of asking/being asked to participate in the battle to 'kyunin (upper class retainers)-like Yoriko' to whom Yorioya gave shoryo and salary, and in addition, sometimes there were cases where daimyo gave the dominant samurai, their own Yoriko, the shoryo (yorikokyu) to be given to the dominant samurai's Yoriko in turn.
In the Sengoku period, in order to stabilize the master-servant relationship, daimyo guaranteed the rights of the dominant samurai who had become Yorioya, prohibited Yoriko from changing Yorioya, and gave Yorioya a legal force by ordering that lawsuits against daimyo should be filed through Yorioya; on the other hand, they adopted a policy to secure Yoriko as their military force by allowing Yoriko change Yorioya if Yorioya didn't give Onkyu (rewards from master to a vassal) or if Yorioya mistreated Yoriko.
Among the daimyo during the Sengoku period who adopted the Yorioya-Yoriko system, the Gohojo clan, the Imagawa clan, the Takeda clan, the Rokkaku clan, and the Mori clan are well-known. The weaker relationship of 'instructor-pupil' (Onkyu was not provided for and the leader-follower relationship was formed in times of emergency), for example, was adopted by the Date clan and the Yuki clan.
During the Edo period, as the master-servant relationship was restructured, Yorioya-Yoriko ceased to exist as a system, but the vestiges of the system remained widely, and yoriki and doshin remained as the titles for low-level functionary at magistrate's office, as well as 'Yorioya' the name for an employment agency that placed various servants and 'Yoriko' which meant servants.