Divorce in Japan

Harald Fuess is a Director and Executive Board Member of the White Rose East Asia Centre and the National Institute of Japanese Studies at the Universities of Sheffield and Leeds. He obtained his PhD at HarvardUniversity and lived in Japan for 15 years.

"...This book is a must-read for social scientists with research interests in the areas of gender, marriage and the family, and demography." - Canadian Journal of Sociology Online "In providing a detailed analysis of the gender dynamics of marriage, moreover, [Fuess] illuminates the shifting position of women within the family and marriage, pertinent to many discussions of contemporary Japanese society." - Pacific Affairs "[This book] is a rich resource that will provide the starting point for much new research and will be widely cited by anyone writing on divorce and marriage in Japan." - Journal of Japanese Studies "In Divorce in Japan: Family, Gender, and the State, 1600-2000, Harald Fuess presents a careful and very accessible description of the social and political context of Japan's historically very high rates of divorce, their subsequent decline to very low levels, and their recent return to levels on par with most other industrialized societies. This book is a welcome addition to the very limited English-language literature on divorce in Japan....the central themes in this historical overview of divorce in Japan should be of broad interest to all sociologists." - American Journal of Sociology "This fine interdisciplinary treatment of divorce should be useful to those in family studies, comparative social sciences, and institutional and legal historians, in addition to the obvious contribution it makes to Japanese area studies, for undergraduate and graduate courses alike." - Contemporary Sociology "Divorce in Japan is an invaluable contribution to scholarship on Japan, not just for what it reveals about divorce, marriage, and family, but for the comprehensive use of materials and its theoretical underpinnings. Fuess is to be commended for his meticulous methods of interpretation and his expression of compelling findings in a clear, unequivocal prose style." - Canadian Journal of History

• Contents Acknowledgmentsxiii Note on Japanese Namesxv 1.The Forgotten History of Japanese Divorce1 When Japan Led the World in Divorce, 1--Competing Interpretations of Traditional High Divorce Rates, 6--A New History of Japanese Divorce, 9--Changing Definitions of Marriage and Divorce, 11--Sources, 15 2.For the Sake of the House: Edo-Period Patterns, Perceptions, and Precedents18 Divorce Across Status and Domain Boundaries, 21--"No- Fault" Divorce in Popular Plays, 25--Magistrates in Support of Household Authority, 29--Merciful Buddhist Temples: An Alternative Venue for Divorce Negotiations, 39--Household Status Versus Sex, 44 3.Testing a Spouse: The Trial Marriage System47 Meiji Marriage Ambiguities, 48--The Frequency of Divorce in the Meiji Era, 57--Multiple Remarriage Opportunities, 67-- The Trial Marriage System and Household Survival, 72 4.Unsuitable to the Family Tradition? Popular Divorce Customs in the 1870s75 Obtaining a Customary Consent Divorce, 76--The Terms of Customary Consent Divorce, 82--Life After Divorce, 96-- Evidence of Female Divorce Initiatives, 96--Early Modern Divorce Revisited, 98 5.Between French Law and Japanese Customs: Codifying Divorce in Meiji Japan100 Intellectual Interpretations of Divorce in the 1870s and the 1880s, 102--The Napoleonic Code and the Early Codification Process, 1873-1887, 105--The Backlash Against "French" Divorce, 1887-1892, 109--Reaffirming the Dual Divorce System, 1892- 1898, 110--The Civil Code of 1898: Divorce, Family, and Gender, 114 6.When Marriage Was on the Rise: Declining Divorce Rates, 1898-1940119 Legislation and the Precipitous Drop in Divorce, 1897-1899, 120--The Gradual Decline, 1900-1940, 128 7.Forward to the Past: A Historical Perspective on Japanese Divorce After World War II144 Legislative Reform During the American Occupation, 145-- The 1960s Revolution in Japanese Divorce Behavior, 152--The Return of the Divorcing Society in the 1990s, , 161 Appendix169 Notes175 Select Bibliography211 Index223 Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Divorce Japan History, Domestic relations Japan