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As Japan's Women Move Up, Many Are Moving OutBy
Howard W. French
The New
York Times, March 25, 2003
Life was happy during the first 10 years of Tomoko Masunaga's married life. At the very least, as a middle-class housewife with two small children to raise, she was far too busy to focus on the nettles, Ms. Masunaga said. Serious problems in her marriage began to surface, though, as her children grew older, and Ms. Masunaga began doing things outside the home, first busying herself with the local parent-teacher association, and eventually writing articles for the teachers' union and environmental groups. "He had promised he would support me if I decided to work someday, and then he betrayed me," Ms. Masunaga said of her husband, an executive. "What's worse, he got old very quickly. "For the first 10 years at least he made an effort at conversation," she said. "But the company was everything for him, and after awhile, he would just come home tired and sit silently watching TV, drinking his beer." Finally, after more than two decades of marriage, Ms. Masunaga moved boldly to cast off her unhappiness and, taking a step that stunned her husband, got a divorce against his wishes. Ms. Masunaga, now a vivacious 60-year-old who went on to write a popular book about her experience, teaches English and has resumed a practice abandoned since her college days: dating. Little more than a decade ago, middle-aged divorces like these were almost unheard of in Japan, even while the divorce rate among younger couples was steadily creeping upward to levels comparable with many European countries. While the overall divorce rate in Japan still appears flat when compared with America and Europe, in the last few years divorces among older people have been skyrocketing, reflecting profound changes in a traditionally conservative society. Novel concepts like individualism, materialism and personal happiness, experts say, are breaking down age-old notions of the collective good, of harmony, and, above all, of "gaman," or self-denial. "Middle-aged divorces in my practice have gone up 300 percent in the last 10 years," said Atsuko Okano, who runs a highly successful marriage counseling business, with offices around the country. "Gaman used to be considered Japan's greatest virtue, and for the wife, that meant responsibility toward the children, and knowing how to cope. "There has been a real shift in the winds since Japan became rich, and more and more women started working outside the home," Ms. Okano added. "Nowadays, without a doubt, one's own life is the most important thing." Technically speaking, divorce has long been a simple matter in Japan, requiring little more than the signatures of both parties and a trip to city hall to file the papers. For women, however, a hundred more or less hidden constraints have long conspired to make legal separation morally or financially prohibitive, in all but the most abusive relationships. The wife, in particular, traditionally faced opprobrium from family, which expected her to suffer in silent dignity. The whispers of neighbors in a shame-sensitive society were another powerful disincentive. If that were not enough, divorce courts were stingy with alimony, the job market all but closed to middle-aged women, and banks unwilling to issue loans, mortgages or even credit cards to the former wife, a situation that is only slowly changing. "I knew that I couldn't get a credit card once I was divorced, so I established one in my name beforehand," said Keiko, 43, who divorced a retired diplomat two years ago and asked that only her first name be used. "Nonetheless, the difficulties were greater than I had expected," she said. "I was a housewife — with no career, no qualifications and no skills — and it was difficult to find a job. "Even for part-time jobs and contract workers, most companies only accept people under 35." Sociologists often lump the significant shifts taking place in marriage with other profound social changes under way here: the demise of lifetime employment, the postponement of marriage, the collapsing birthrate and the dropping out of many younger adults, who drift between part-time jobs and live with their parents well into their 30's. Taken together, many experts say, these changes are comparable to the seismic cultural shifts seen in the United States in the 1960's and 1970's. "It is very hard to look at Japan today and imagine the way it was just a decade ago," said Sean Curtin, an expert in family studies at the Japan Red Cross University, on Hokkaido. "Usually when we think of changes in the family we think of younger people, but these things are sweeping through the entire society." Mr. Curtin, who has tracked the evolution of television in Japan, says the changing attitudes surrounding middle-aged divorce are both reflected in and propelled by racy daytime dramas and boisterous talk programs, known as "wide shows," which have gone from schooling housewives in how to become the perfect spouse to tutoring women in issues like divorce, postmotherhood careers and sexual freedom. "In the 1950's, TV advertisements typically showed smiling women serving coffee to their husbands, but by the 1960's people were breaking out of such stereotyped roles," he said. "That's what's taking place right now in Japan." Other experts attribute the explosion in middle-aged divorce to a sort of trickle-up women's liberation, in which grown daughters, often still living at home, prod their mothers to stop putting up with emotionally barren or abusive relationships with their fathers. "For a very long time I was unhappy, but when I consulted with my parents and friends, they all said to me that I was being too selfish," said Keiko Imaizumi, 56, who is in the midst of a divorce from an art gallery manager, after over 20 years of marriage. "For years, I resolved to simply be a good wife, but I was never happy. Finally, when I told my children I wanted a divorce, all three children said they supported me. "One of them said, `Mom, you've been cleaning up his messes all these years, at last you should be free to enjoy your own life.' " Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
