Japanese Divorce Law Makes Husbands Play Nice
Posted on November 26, 2007 - Filed Under Deep Thoughts, Current Events |
Most Americans are aware of the Japanese businessmen work ethic: long hours at work makes a good employee. But like me, you may not be aware of how fragile the Japanese family has become because of this work ethic as discussed in an article in today’s Washington Post.
On a trip to Amsterdam a few years ago, I went to check out the Red Light District only to find the long lines of Japanese businessmen outside the brothels surprisingly more disturbing than an entire area of a city devoted to professional prostitutes (they have unions and healthcare!). I just thought the Japanese really swung that way, but maybe there’s something more to it.
A Japanese law passed in 2003 allows the divorcing wife the right to as much as half of her husband’s pension, but the provision didn’t go into effect until this April, which was met by thousands of applications from women who wanted out of their loveless marriages. This law has made Japanese men take notice of the toll that years of neglect is having on their wives and children. The corporate culture of men spending all of their time at the office and then at afterwork social events (usually involving lots of drinking) is leaving these families feeling abandoned and the wives as though they are living separate lives. Insert image of drunk Japanese man stumbling into apartment demanding dinner, ordering a bath to be drawn, and then passing out.
This phenomenon isn’t anything necessarily new to the American worker, which has actively included women in the past 20 years, but depending on what state you live in, the divorcing spouse has had some right to their spouse’s assets for years. The interesting thing is that it took a law taking a bite out of the Japanese man’s hard-earned savings to make them realize that they might not have a partner in their retirement years to take care of them. Japanese men are having to learn how to say I love you and how to buy gifts for their wives to show them they care, but many Japanese wives are indicating that it may be too late. Many Japanese women are choosing to marry much later in life, if at all, because of the lonely, unappreciated stigma of a Japanese woman’s role in marriage.
A newlywed inductee into the National Chauvinistic Husband’s Association decided he better join early to learn how to be a good husband from the beginning by shedding the traditionally chauvinist ways that Japanese men are taught to act in order to be a “strong” man. This association is teaching men that it’s good to say thank you and to be sorry in an effort to change the dynamic of the crumbling Japanese family.
As someone that was always a step-kid because of numerous divorces, I too had no interest in ever getting married, but realized when I was dating my husband that it’s not necessarily the institution of marriage that is troubled, but that two people entering into a marriage must have a common idea of how they want their marriage to work. It may take years for Japanese women to even consider entering marriage after seeing what their mothers and grandmothers have gone through, but if the Japanese men are willing to even the playing field and spend more time as a husband, then maybe they’ll see fewer visits to Amsterdam.
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I read that article too — my heart went out to those poor long-suffering Japanese wives. They deserve every penny they can get if they decide to cut the cord.