A new book claims that high divorce rates is not a modern phenomenon in Japan, but is actually more of a tradition.

In DIVORCE IN JAPAN: Family, Gender and the State 1600-2000 (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2004, 226 pages), which was reviewed recently in The Japan Times, Harold Feuss claims that divorce rates in 19th-century Japan were actually higher than they are today.

Elevated divorce rates are nothing new to Japan; indeed, 19th-century rates have been exceeded only by those in the post-1970s United States. As recently as the late 19th century, there was little stigma attached to divorce and multiple marriages were common. A civil code and new laws on family registration introduced in 1898, however, led to a sharp decline in divorce rates. Fuess notes that “Industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, broad trends often blamed for an increase in divorce, had the opposite effect in Japan during the first four decades of the twentieth century.”

Fuess also says that spouse testing was the norm long ago in Japan, with both men and women remarrying.

How did Japan get a reputation for low divorce rates?

The anomalous period in Japanese divorce history spanned the period 1898-1940 when divorce rates declined. Why? According to Fuess, there was a strengthening of the institution of marriage because the Japanese “valued economic and social stability in marriage above romance and affection.” In addition, a new sexual morality developed that criticized divorce as a national disgrace and a poor reflection on women’s rights.