Divorce and Japan
There’s a sad statistic that’s on the rise in Japan these days: divorce.
The combination of the country’s rapidly aging society, high stress levels and a new law that enables a woman to claim up to half of her husband’s company pension is causing the number of older couples getting a “vintage year divorce” to rise.
When I was an English teacher, I taught a wide range of students, including a fair number of housewives, and I remember being surprised by the venom some of the women were capable of spitting when discussing their husbands. I didn’t understand at the time that at least some of this husband-bashing was part of a Japanese social custom you might call “out-humbling each other,” as women try to show that they have the most worthless, lazy husband in the room. (Japanese mothers and grandmothers will do the same thing when discussing their own children with others, having competitions to see whose kids were the most baka, and I’ve had to expressly forbid this kind of talk in my own home.)
The divorce rate in Japan is still comparatively low — currently around 2.2 per 1000 people per year, compared with 4 in the U.S. and 2.6 in the U.K. — but finding someone who is batsu-ichi (lit. “one strike out”) is a lot more common than it has been in the past. Coupled with the trend of women either marrying much later or not at all, it Japan has some tough issues to face as the 21st century progresses.
I am not so sure why this statistic is so “sad”…unless you think that all marriages before were happy and just now there are more problems which create more divorces…
Instead the legal situation changed a little bit in favour for women (and is not completly stone-aged anymore) and also I think women get more confident to pursue their own interest…in short, they are just “waking up”.
Taking care of the old husband after retirement, the guy who cheated on them for years, worked late every evening (or let’s say “came home late every evening”) and who is now sitting at home all day and expects to be treated like a king and does nothing himself….well, who wants to blame the women?
Japanese society has to wake up and treat their women with more respect and give them more equal opportunities and possibilities. Seeing them just as housewives, mother of the children and future birth machines will bring the Japanese society down sooner or later…. that would actually be sad.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:57 pmI think you have to get away from the stereotypical concept of Japanese men being chauvinistic and self absorbed. Many of the married men I have met in Japan were committed to their wives and family. Sure, there are men who go out on their wives but I don’t think it is as wide spread as people think.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:45 pmIt is quite sad. Kanedaa should know that cheating on a wife requires both time and money, and the typical Japanese salaryman has neither. He works all the time, and his salary goes straight to the wife, who usually gives him a very modest amount for expenses in return.
Rich guys, on the other hand, cheat on their wives all around the world. Because they can.
September 16th, 2008 at 7:08 amThen the people in my office must be quite rich…. And btw. I do consider everything after the talking-only girls-bar (?) as cheating. Afaik, my Boss tends to divide it into five “Service Levels”, lvl one being the ‘Girlsbar’ (as he calls it) and lvl 5 the full service…
On the other hand, most men I meet here claim that they control the money. Sure, some of them lie because of pride, but all of them…?
And almost all (both men and women) that I met claim to have secret accounts were they hide money from their husbands/wives. Way to go for a trustful marriage…
And you really think working (and drinking) every evening until 2200 or later is good for your marriage?
Btw, I don’t think that men in the west are much better. But we do have a higher divorce rate as well… I think it comes just automatically once the women get more self-assured, backed up by the law (to a certain extend) and care less about what “society” thinks.
Ah, and please correct me if I am wrong: Here in Japan, if a divorce goes to court (i.e. if 3-6 years of mediation fails), there are only a number of fixed reasons that a judge will accept as a legit reason to accept the divorce, among them cheating, violence etc. However, two are exclusive to men and women:
Only women can divorce on the grounds that he doesn’t pay for the family (what if the man is a “houseman” and she works? stupid law…).
And only men can divorce on the grounds that she denies him sex (if he denies her, it doesn’t matter)…
Yeah, better than Saudi-Arabia or Iran, but that’s about it…
September 16th, 2008 at 8:26 am