Marriage in Japan and in the West: One word, two concepts (2003) | Hacker News Reader

Marriage in Japan and in the West: One word, two concepts (2003)

web.archive.org

30 pointsguzamy7 comments

I've spoken to several Asian coworkers who moved to the US, and one of the most common reasons for them to move to the US was because they wanted to continue working. That said, the culture is changing (especially in Japan post 1990 long term recession) and even the last 15 years since 2003 it has eroded more. It is much more common to see men publicly spend a lot of time with their children... and it is commonly portrayed positively in media, while the old male style is often portrayed negatively.

AFAIK the Western Concept of the love-based marriage is relative new. It only started becoming popular 150-200 years ago, with the age of enlightenment and the rise of human rights.

> As the father of a child born outside marriage is not legally recognised, the marriage rate of parents is close to 100%.

I think this is referring to the "recognition" process, where if a kid is born out of marriage, the parents have to recognize it as their own to have the full legal attachments.

This means for instance that a father can refuse to recognize a kid, and won't have any legal obligation if no action is taken by the mother or the kid. Technically it's the same for the mother, but most of the time she has to recognize the kid for obvious reasons.

Article's statement should be qualified, as parents can voluntarily recognize their child (this will happen for normal non wed parents), or be forced to do so by the family (they needs to go through legal procedures though). Marriage doesn't matter that much in this case, it's just easier socialy speaking.

Is this just some guy's blog? This seems like wild orientalization.

It's some kind of forum for english speaking foreigners in Japan. From the phrasing it would seem that the writer isn't a primary english speaker, but has been living in Japan for a while. Lots of what he says are stereotypes, but some stereotypes are useful for understanding radically different cultures.

Like it or not, my cultural mores were formed by Star Trek, and 80s sitcoms. It's what I think of as normal... watch some Japanese movies/drama and you'll see completely different and changing mores. Interestingly, for the last several years all of Asia seems to be watching Korean drama.

I'm from India and a lot of what the article says is considered very normal also in India. At least, in the southern parts of the country.

But the western culture does have an impact, for the past couple of decades or so. While it is the norm, people have now started accepting deviations from the tradition.

The time's not far when the western ideologies will become the new "normal" in India.

Marriage: one word, one meaning: man and woman trying to get along. And a billion different implementations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com