Marriage in Contemporary Japan

Yoko Tokuhiro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135230319
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The phenomenon of bankonka – 'postponement of marriage' – is increasingly reported in contemporary Japanese media, clearly illustrating the changing patterns of modern lifestyles and attitudes towards marriage, personal obligation and ambition. This is the first book in recent years to explore the contemporary state of marriage in Japanese society. Setting out the different perceptions and expectations of marriage in today's Japan, the book discusses how economic issues and the family impact on marital behaviour. Contrary to the views of some feminists that young women have no interest in improving their status and position, this book argues that, by delaying marriage and childrearing, young women can be seen as 'rebels' challenging Japanese patriarchal society. Unlike many other studies, it gives equal attention to male gender roles and masculinity, exploring what constitutes being a 'real man' in Japan – through the analysis of mainstream and non-mainstream conceptions of masculinity that co-exist in contemporary Japan, and considers the implications of such different roles for the institution of marriage. It investigates the roles of wife and mother, articulating why the strict division of labour defining men as breadwinners and women as homemakers became popular. Moreover, it describes the changing character of courtship relationships, explaining why the norm has shifted from arranged marriages pre-1945 to love marriages after that period. Finally, it puts the Japanese experience into cross-cultural, international context with a series of comparisons with marriage elsewhere both in Asia – including in Korea and Hong Kong – and in western countries such as France, Sweden, Italy and the United States.

1 Perceptions and expectations of marriage in Japan

Introduction

One day when I was travelling on the Tokyo subway, I picked up a free magazine titled L25 published by a company called Recruit.¹ The magazine is targeted at those so called ‘OL’ (office ladies) between the ages of 25 and 34 working in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. A small column reads ‘Dekichatta [kek]kon tte dō omou?’ (What do you think about shotgun weddings?) The magazine reports that such marriages are on the rise. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (2005a) also reports that in 2000, 26 per cent of first-born babies were conceived before marriage, which is a 100 per cent increase over the 13 per cent recorded in 1980. The rise has been even more dramatic among younger women, as 58 per cent of first-born babies delivered in 2000 to women aged 20–24 were conceived before marriage, compared with 20 per cent in 1980 (Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare 2005a).

The rapid increase in pregnant brides has opened a new market for some companies. One insurance company, AIU, started a new type of travel insurance that covers pregnant brides going abroad for their honeymoon. Wacoal, a female underwear manufacturer, saw potential for profits in producing wedding dresses for pregnant brides, using the slogan ‘beautiful yet gentle dresses for the maternal body’ in an advertisement.

These news items show the extremes to which Japanese couples will go to avoid giving birth out of wedlock. Indeed, the rate of children born out of wedlock remains extremely low in Japan, running consistently at only about 1 to 2 per cent of total births since around 1960 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2003). This reveals a strong normative tie between legal marriage and reproduction. Countries in the West show a weaker tie, and according to Ochiai (1997: 173) the extra-marital birth rate in Japan is one-tenth that of Germany, one-twentieth that of Britain, and less than one-fortieth that of Scandinavian countries.

The prevalence of extra-marital births in the West, especially the northern and western European countries is closely associated with a high prevalence of unmarried cohabitation. Leaving home before marriage is supposed to encourage both formal marriage and cohabitation, but a large proportion of unmarried people in Japan live with their parents, a phenomenon often condemned by conservative Japanese social commentators. Suzuki, for instance, says that it ‘discourages autonomy and decision making ability in their own lives’ (2006: 23). In 2005, for instance, 70.3 per cent of unmarried Japanese men and 76.4 per cent of unmarried Japanese women between the ages of 18 and 34 still lived with their parents (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2007a). What is intriguing is the fact that a large number of unmarried Japanese are delaying their marriage without forming any kind of consensual or ‘paperless’ unions.

In order better to understand this and other aspects of contemporary Japanese views of marriages, the next section will briefly discuss the cultural-historical background.

Cultural-historical background

Pre-war

The ie seido or ‘family system’ was considered a cornerstone of Japanese society until the end of the Second World War. The family system was hierarchical in structure, providing priority to family members based on gender, age, and birth. It was based on the Confucian ethic that supported a patriarchal family, which directed people as a ‘conscience-driven guide’ especially among the Samurai (warrior) class and some rich merchants during the Tokugawa feudal period (1603–1868). As discussed in more detail in a later chapter, the Confucian doctrine was not pervasive among the majority social group – the farming class – until the Edo period. Thus Wagatsuma and De Vos (1984) note that relationships between family members among the rural peasants seemed to be more intimate and egalitarian than among the Samurai class. However, the Confucian ethic and its values permeated the whole of society during the Meiji period (1868–1912) as the government promoted the idea of Confucian ethics as the basis of national moral education.

Confucian values stressed the subordination of the individual to a larger group and directly affected mate selection. Individual decision-making by people of a lower class also came to be viewed as improper and rebellious with regard to both family and society. The prime objective of marriage was the continuation of lineage and therefore mate-selection was controlled by family members through a form of arranged marriage (miai). Dore states that

‘Arranged marriage’ means that the parties were brought together expressly for the purpose of marriage on the initiative of parents, a friend of the family or a go-between. It means also that the initial criteria of selection were objective ones. (1999: 167)

The patriarchal family system was officially supported by the Meiji Civil Code, which legitimized the power of the head of the family over other family members, and made women legally inferior to men. All this brought about changes in the concept of, and attitude towards, marriage among the majority population, i.e. the farmers (Wagatsuma and De Vos 1984).

When the prime objective of marriage was the continuity of family lines, parenthood played a significant role not only in terms of continuation of lineage but also to provide emotional fulfilment, especially among women, who were placed in an inferior situation.

For those who are married according to arrangement, the marriage does not become complete until they produce children. The arrival of the first child is the consummation of the marriage, the fulfilment of the expected function of the marriage. In other words, they get married not so much for the purpose of becoming husband and wife as for becoming father and mother.

(Blood 1967: 82)

Furthermore, many couples in arranged marriages, finding a lack of genuine affection in the relationship, gained something emotionally from the arrival of the first child. This was probably more so among women. Many who felt dissatisfied with their husbands actually looked forward to becoming mothers through which they gained emotional satisfaction and social acceptance (Sechiyama 1996; Blood 1967).

Post-war

After the war, the ie seido or family system was abolished, through the 1947 Constitution and associated Civil Code. The new constitution assured the freedom of choice of spouses and both men and women became able to marry without the consent of parents. The following is Article 24, regarding marriage:

Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes

(Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet).

Edwards notes that all these changes tended to ‘weaken the concept of marriage as a duty toward the house’ in popular thought (1989: 6).

Despite the revision of the Meiji Civil Code, the statistics clearly reveal that the number of love marriages exceeded the number of arranged marriages only after the late 1960s. This suggests that despite the legal change in the family system, it took some years for the Japanese to adopt the new principle as a new ideal. Wagatsuma and De Vos argue that arranged marriages still continued even among those who expressed a preference for a marriage based on their personal choice and that this was due to deeply rooted social and family pressure. Another possibility could be that arranged marriages were easier to accept psychologically for many young people, as free choice in marriage was often viewed as a form of rebellion towards parents and society. Thus, even after the revision of the Civil Code, arranged marriages dominated as a preferred method of mate-selection (Wagatsuma and De Vos 1984). Cultural constraints imposed on individuals as well as norms surrounding marriage thus affected people’s actual behaviour.

Among those constraints we may include the dominant view of human nature hat underlies thinking on marriage. It is often asserted that Japanese culture has tended to encourage interdependency. For instance, Walter Edwards describes this interdependent view of marriage as ‘complementary incompetencies’ which help to hold or bind the marriage together (1989: 120). He argues that the Japanese tend to view themselves as ‘incompetent’ when alone, and only through marriage or other group association do they become competent. He notes that

Japanese notions of gender make marriage necessary because individuals – both men and women – are always incomplete; their deficiencies, moreover, are complementary. Men need women to manage both their money and their domestic lives. Women need men to provide economic security and proper representation for the family in the public domain. (1989: 123)

Furthermore, he asserts that in Japan getting married is a basic mark of adulthood, carrying with it social responsibilities and an achievement of independence as a couple. Remaining single ‘carries the severe implications of immaturity and lack of moral responsibility’ (1989: 124). Although the prejudice against nonmarriage seems to be weakening, the view described by Edwards remains influential, informing such phenomena as the denigration of ‘parasite singles’² that I will discuss later. By the same token, once people have entered into married life, any pursuit of individualism which threatens the harmony of the family is perceived as being selfish in Japanese society. Edwards notes,

Anyone who asserts he is his own man, complete in himself, is by definition wagamama – selfish, heedless of his interdependence with others, unwilling to recognize and accede to the constraints that social relations invariably entail. In short, like the child who thinks only of himself, he is immature.

(Edwards 1989: 126)

These attitudes are reflected in strong ethical norms regarding the correct approach to marriage – norms that have not necessarily changed that much from the days when arranged marriage was very much expected. A survey conducted by the Asahi Shinbun (1 January 1998) asking people for their ‘image of marriage’ revealed that the most popular keyword among women was ‘nintai’ (patience). The most popular answer among men in almost all age groups was ‘sekinin’ (responsibility). It can be argued that commitment, especially social commitment defined as ‘a sense of obligation to the relationship rather than a positive feeling about the partner’ (Kayser 1993: 11), is still one important factor that keeps spouses together in Japan. The belief still persists that marriage is a lifetime commitment, although social pressure and constraint against ending their marriage is somewhat weakening now.³ People are still quite concerned about how they are viewed by the general public, and at the same time, and the belief that parents should remain together for the sake of the children also remains strong to this day.

Perceptions of marriage in Japan today

With a strong contemporary emphasis on the ideal of romantic love marriages, the number of love marriages came to exceed that of arranged marriages, and today the proportion of love marriages is over 85 per cent (Ministry of Health and Welfare 1996). This indicates that the value of marriage and family has been changing in important ways. This change has been particularly noticeable among women. For example, the White Paper on Social Welfare in 1998 reported that more women are in favour of postponing their marriage ‘until they find the ideal person’, compared with men, who are more seriously concerned about the tekireiki or ‘marriageable age’ (Ministry of Health and Welfare 1998).⁴ Furthermore, a national government survey indicated that changes in women’s attitudes towards marriage were the greatest in the 1980s, and by 1990 only 13.8 per cent of Japanese women reported that they viewed marriage as ‘a woman’s happiness’ (josei no ko– fuku), down from 39.7 per cent in 1972 and 30.4 per cent as recently as 1984 (Ministry of Health and Welfare 1996). Young women today are redefining the concepts of marriage and family and seeking a way to fulfil their aspirations for happiness within marriage. Women are generally rejecting the conventional male norms of leaving women to do domestic chores, being allowed to pursue a career only with the husband’s tolerance and consent (Jolivet 1997).

It is important to determine what sort of women are the forerunners in regard to changing views towards marriage. There seem to be three important variables that significantly affect women’s age at first marriage, namely women’s academic background, regional differences, and age cohort. First, there is a clear correlation between the timing of first marriage and educational attainment. It was reported that in 1997 the average age at first marriage was 22.8 among graduates from junior high school, 25.3 among high school graduates (co-educational only), 26.4 among junior college and vocational school graduates, and 27.4 among four-year college and postgraduates (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 1998). According to the 1995 National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences by the Economic Planning Agency, women with higher educational achievements tend to support the jiritsu gata marriage (in which husband and wife maintain their own independence) rather than teishu kanpaku gata (in which the husband leads and dominates the family). This survey reports that 18.8 per cent of junior high graduates, 28.2 per cent of high school graduates, 29.5 per cent of junior college graduates, and 35.4 per cent of four-year college graduates supported jiritsu gata while 11.5, 8.6, 6.8 and 2.1 per cent respectively supported teishu kanpaku gata. Highly-educated women’s attempts to build more egalitarian relationships can also be seen from their preference for finding marriage partners whose age is closer to their own. Graduates from junior high school prefer to marry men who are on average 3.35 years older, 2.75 for high school, 2.57 for junior college and vocational school, and 2.37 for four-year college graduates (Institute of Population Problems, Ministry of Health and Welfare 1993). When asked about the role that women themselves value most, the majority of female graduates from four-year colleges continued to place their role as a family member as the first priority (57.4 per cent). Yet, a substantial minority of females in this group (31.3 per cent) supported the idea of pursuing individual goals and purposes, compared to just 14 per cent of high school graduates and 12.1 per cent of junior high school graduates (Economic Planning Agency 1994: 13). These surveys appear to indicate significant changes in the perceptions and expectations of marriage among highly-educated women (especially four-year college graduates).

Second, high educational attainment is usually associated with greater opportunities to increase income. For instance, the average monthly wage of female high school graduates in 2007 was 200, 100 yen while four-year college graduates and holders of postgraduate degrees averaged 280, 200 yen (Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare 2008). This is an important point for this study because in areas of the country where women earn higher salaries which is predominantly in urban areas, there is a tendency to postpone marriage. For instance, in 1995 the three regions with the highest female incomes, Tokyo, Kanagawa, and Chiba, maintained higher female average ages at first marriage, 27.3, 26.7, and 26.5 years of age respectively (Economic Planning Agency 1997), compared to the nationwide average age of 26.3 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2001).

One reason why highly educated women postpone marriage is probably that they are aware they will forego the opportunities for earning such high incomes by staying at home as a result of marriage and/or child-rearing.⁵ At the same time, women with higher educational backgrounds perceive careers differently. When female graduates from four-year colleges were asked about the reason for their participation in the labour force in a 1991 survey, most women (53.8 per cent) answered that they wished to make the best use of their abilities and possessed a strong desire to become economically independent. Only 9.9 per cent of junior high graduates, 13.6 per cent of high school graduates, and 34.9 per cent of junior college graduates replied in the same manner (Seimei Hoken Bunka Sentā [Life Insurance Culture Centre] 1992 cited in Toshitani et al. 1996).

Third, if women’s perceptions of marriage are evaluated and analyzed based on age cohort, women of the younger generation tend to have more egalitarian ideas. In response to a question about ideal family types in a 1998 survey, more people in the younger generation supported katei nai kyōryoku gata marriage (husband and wife cooperating with each other) while fewer supported yakuwari buntan gata marriage (with a clear division of labour between men as breadwinners and women as housewives) (NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute 1998). In short, these data indicate that young urban women with high academic backgrounds are the ones who tend to delay their marriages and have changing perceptions of marriage, education, and career.

In contrast, men’s ideas and attitudes towards marriage, ‘have evolved much less rapidly than women’s’ (Jolivet 1997: 165), thus creating discrepancies between the sexes in their attitudes towards marriage (Jolivet 1997; Ohashi 2000; Iwao 1993; Tsuya and Mason 1995). In response to a 1992 survey question about the qualities regarded as the most important in deciding on prospective marriage partners, 80.6 per cent of unmarried women aged in their 20s and 30s replied that compatibility of personality is most important. Nonethel...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Explanatory note
• Figures
• Tables
• Introduction
• 1: Perceptions and expectations of marriage in Japan
• 2: The impact of feminist discourses on marriage and fertility
• 3: Male gender roles and masculinity
• 4: Gender roles The roles of wife and mother
• 5: Changes in courtship practices
• 6: Beyond Japan Crossnational comparisons
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Notes
• Bibliography