The Hidden Truth About Japenese Divorce Law
Osaka, Kansai region, is a two and a half-hour bullet train ride from Tokyo. After you exit the bullet train you are in the cultural heart of Japan. The city of Osaka is part of the second-largest metropolitan area in all of Japan. This city, which is home to 19.2 million people consists of kids, adults, married couples, etc. In this city, we can see happy families walking on the streets, but in the dark alleyway of marriages, there is a hidden truth.
Randy Poehlman, a foreigner, was married to his Japanese wife for seven years before calling it quits in 2016. The woman he once loved had fallen into the pit of depression and unemployment. Like many mothers, she had acquired postpartum depression, which manifested itself into hoarding physical objects that her daughter touched. Randy says “I was losing my ability to trust her to take care of the basics like adequately feed and clothe our daughter.” The couple decided to get a divorce, but after signing the document he had gotten a one-way ticket to the hell of Japanese divorce law.
Japan has been through many different stages of how people get divorced and its regulation of divorce. Japan's history of divorces dates back to the 19th century when there were traditional families called ie. If the receiving family, usually the son’s family, does not like their new in-law they could send her back for a “divorce.” But in 1946 Japan eliminated the three-line
This is an example of a traditional Japanese family (ie). Here we can see lots of extended family, such as uncles, aunts, grandmothers, and children. This style of the family was very prevalent before World War II.
letter where a man could dismiss his wife and in turn, child-custody now favors the mother instead of the mandatory custody by the husband's family. Then the Japanese family turned into the contemporary nuclear family and divorce went down due to more free-choice marriages - This can also be called the “Salaryman” family, which came around the late 1950s (post-WW2) and, the family consisted of a wage-earning husband, a housewife (shufu), and their children. - But as the country continues to industrialize, the divorce rate keeps going up. The divorce rate in Japan, one out of three marriages, is still substantially lower than the US, where 50 percent of people get divorced.
Today, the Japanese divorce law is very strict when it comes to the custody of the child in question. Unlike in the US, Japan does not offer joint custody in most cases of divorce. Due to an attempt to undo years of historical male dominance, Japanese law will usually favor the women’s side. In the US Embassy Japan Magazine, “One significant limitation, however, is that Japanese law does side. Japanese law will also favor the person with Japanese ethnicity in the case of interracial marriages. In the article Separate Ways: Why Joint Parenting After Divorce in Japan is So Rare, Jay Andrew Allen, an American Man, had just remarried to his beautiful wife Aya who is Japenese. Before Allen had married Aya, he had married an American wife who he was still in contact with. Aya was puzzled because Allen and his wife still shared events and holidays together for their children, which was extremely uncommon in Japan.
This is a graph showing how the two types of marriages increased and decreased over the years. From 1950 to 1960 we see the development of the nuclear family with more love marriages instead of arranged marriages. This happened after World War II after the Japanese people decided they needed to Westernize.
In Japan, Randy’s daughter is just one of the three million children who have lost access to one of their parents. (Kittaka) In the case of Japanese divorce, the child is in a sense “abducted.” According to Divorce and Child Custody Issues in the Japanese Legal System, “One significant limitation, however, is that Japanese law does not allow for the formal continuation of joint parental authority after divorce even if both parents agree to it.”(Jones) This leads to foreign divorcees losing all custodial and visitation rights of their children.
In Randy’s case, Japanese law was not on his side and gave full custody to his ex-wife. Randy says, “I have very little legal rights to see my daughter and I have been denied any involvement in her life since then. Like so many other parents, something that was once unimaginable has become my darkest reality.” His daughter got abducted by no other than this wife. All he wanted to do is be a normal father and 'to spend time with his daughter, take her to museums, read books with her, help her with her homework, go hiking together, cook with her and, of course, just be with her. (Poehlman)” According to Poehlman, his daughter has been negatively affected by this ordeal. The poor girl has lost access to the dad she looks up to and her mother is keeping her from getting an education. In his article Divorce with Kids in Japan: The Stress of No Joint Child Custody, “Right now, my daughter should be in the second grade of elementary school. But she is not attending school.” This will affect her later in life because education is key in today’s society. Even to this day, Randy has not seen his daughter and has not been in contact with his ex-wife.
People who have been divorced in western countries are very astonished when they learn how Japanese divorce laws operate. Allen, an American man, divorced his wife and remarried to a Japanese woman, Aya. As said in Separate Ways: Why Joint Parenting After Divorce in Japan is So Rare, “Aya and I eventually worked out an approach that works for everyone involved, but her initial reaction was befuddlement that I hadn’t cut ties (縁を切る) with my ex completely.” Aya, Allen’s wife, was very confused because in Japan it is normal to cut ties fully, but to Allen, it's perfectly normal to keep in touch. This also led Allen to, “have numerous conflicts because he was still on good terms with his ex-wife.” (Allen) The cultural norms and divorce regulations between Japan and western nations are so immense that it baffles people in the opposite country.
Randy and Jay have learned a lot from his experience in Japan. In many societies, people believe it is better for children to have both parents, even after divorce, but Japan legally does not allow it. Even in Jay’s case we saw some conflict because of his previous divorce. Divorce is like cancer, it always starts small with someone suggesting it, but then transforms into this tumor that devours your life. The most devastating part is when your partner says “I want a divorce and you are never going to see your child again. I am sure she/he won’t even remember you.”(Poehlman)
