this reminds me of something i recently read about the parents of the first Qin emperor, who were embroiled in a similar scandal, albeit without passionate murder.
I recently listened to a series of podcasts where this was mentioned on Our Fake History, though my recollection was that he seemed to think the story's accuracy was questionable.
Giving a TED talk, replete with vague and over-simplified solutions to complex problems all with a palpable sense of smug superiority... that by itself can be enough to sabotage a relationship: "Oh no, no no no-- I will absolutely break up with you if you give a TED talk about how a carbon tax is the obviously perfect solution to racial injustice."
It really makes one wonder what is said between TED talk staff and the presenter behind the curtain. Or did the first presenter ever simply did it one way and now everyone copies it?
I'm genuinely curious how many of these relationships could actually be salvaged by good counseling, once they've reached the point where someone is willing to hire a saboteur.
Can someone give more context here? Is there some burden of proof required to divorce in Japan? From the article it looks like most are attached to private detective agencies as well. Is this because without evidence of infidelity you have to pay alimony/some other spousal support? Or is there no equivalent of 'we just don't like each other anymore'?
In Japan, divorce is relatively easy in case of mutual consent but in case when the spouse doesn't want to divorce it quickly becomes very complicated...
The first step is mediation with a court appointed mediator which can take a long time... If mediation doesn't work, the next step is to go to court in which case having some dirt on the spouse that doesn't want to divorce is crucial in influencing the judge deciding the case.
From the article: "Isohata’s husband used these photographs as evidence for a divorce. (Such evidence is needed when a Japanese divorce is contested.)"
If both parties agree then divorce is very simple. However, if one party refuses things can be drawn out for years (an old boss of mine came into the office literally singing and dancing after the divorce was finalised).
Bare in mind that Japan has no legal joint custody. Also, culturally it's normal for one parent to have zero contact with children after divorce.
Here is an account of the divorce process［1］. I do not know if all the information is still relevant today.
This makes it sound like no fault divorce is a good thing.
No doubt there are positives but it's difficult to see how it isn't just another step along the path of the trivialising of marriage.
Perhaps we should be looking at other approaches to the problem of unhappy marriages, in particular the due diligence of people in choosing their partners - especially when there are children involved or intended.
I'm not suggesting a method or solution, just pointing out making divorce easier is not universally considered a good thing or moral win.
Maybe we've taken marriage too seriously for hundreds/thousands of years, and we're finally progressing as a global society to realize that till-death-do-us-part might be too big of a commitment for some 20-somethings. After all, what's really the difference between being married and living with your significant other besides some laws that are based on the old views of marriage.
(Granted, with kids things get tricky, but making sure parents stick around and help raise kids to me seems rather independent on whether a couple was married or not - seems more to do with someone's inner beliefs)
Even if we set aside any potential spiritual, or child-rearing value. Marriage is a very important institution in helping people achieve economic mobility, it increases your household income significantly, as well as seriously reducing your cost of living. Anecdotally, my cost of living was drastically reduced when my girlfriend and I moved in together (thereby splitting a 1BR), however given that we aren't married we individually have to save a good amount of money in cash accounts in case of a breakup. If we were married, we could reduce our cash savings by 50% and instead invest that money into the open market. Moreover, we would be far more likely to take care of the other financially if one went to school if we were married. Marriage, and the commitment it entails changes the attitudes of individuals towards each other by ensuring that we can plan for a combined future. all that exists outside of societally constructed benefits like joint taxation and healthcare.
But all your examples of "planning for the future as a married couple" could immediately be for naught if one of you decides to divorce. No different than if your girlfriend decides to move out. Economic mobility could be achieved with an official document saying "You're Married" or without it. It's about the commitment to each other, a commitment that can be as strong or as weak as the two people are willing to make it.
But all your examples of "planning for the future as a married couple" could immediately be for naught if one of you decides to divorce. No different than if your girlfriend decides to move out.
Marriage is not girlfriend/boyfriend.
It's far more serious, and making it a commitment to be contemplated deeply before entering - and not easily breakable - is the whole point of highlighting the problem of trivialising it.
> It's far more serious, and making it a commitment to be contemplated deeply before entering - and not easily breakable
Marriage is rooted in religion, for better or worse, and these thoughts about making marriage some unbreakable for-life bond are based on religious beliefs hundreds of years old. Catholics couldn't divorce, ever! We live in a more enlightened age, one where religious thoughts have less to do with forging our societal beliefs. Can't we progress with our thoughts on marriage as well? Marriage for life would mean for many an unhappy and unfulfilling life. Perhaps a life of violence or depression. Is that we want to force people into? A life without choice, a life without happiness?
"religion" is a legal system f government that isn't grounded in a geographically-defined military.
It can do good or bad just like a political system.
I think this is a shallow analysis. In the past and in many societies it’s fair to say that religion and social order were one and the same.
So it’s not wrong to say marriage has its roots in religion, but the cause to create marriage hasn’t gone away even if religion isn’t a factor: Can you imagine how difficult it was for a single parent (especially women) to raise a child alone, a few millenia ago? I think it’s fair to say that it caused major problems.
Even today raising children is still extremely difficult. Raising a productive citizen is another order of magnitude of difficulty.
Catholics still can't divorce, ever. Obviously the secular power can cease to recognize the marriage, but they are just men, and what God has joined man can't sunder.
Ecclesiastical annulments are grossly misunderstood by most Catholics and non-Catholics alike[1]. They are not "Catholic divorce." And yes, the tribunal system can be gamed, but if you actually believe you should realize that God isn't going to be fooled. And if you don't believe then why do you even care what the Church thinks?
> And if you don't believe then why do you even care what the Church thinks?
Because your friends/neighbours/relatives may be Catholics, and you may care about your appearances.
In my experience with religious folks, keeping God happy is not the sole driving force behind most of their lives to the exclusion of all else. It's a framework around their lives, but not always priority #1.
Given that, annulments are essentially a catholic divorce, with a little bit of magic added.
Not 100% sure, just know through a few friends that it seems very shameful for both parties involves.
Also, parents invest a lot in their child's marriage, e.g. downpayment for a house, car, etc, for their child (singular!), so that adds even more pressure to "make things work".
You can't legislate away the fact that people stop wanting to have anything to do with each other, in spite of being 100% convinced that it's not going to happen to them.
I'm guessing they want enough emergency cash to last them for N months if all income disappeared, and that their expenses are dominated by rent and other things whose costs don't increase with a second person.
The original comment was comparing cash savings in situation where the couple lives together but is not married vs. when they marry. It specifically mentioned the possibility of breakup before marriage, but people divorce all the time and if you get into that situation you'll need those savings.
Well intentioned comment, but that works when people share the same optimizing view towards life.
Think about how many people within your own extended family do this? Take a guess, deliver this talk to them and track through life how many follow the path.
We chimps display a wide spectrum of Personality traits and an even wider spectrum of Needs, which are constantly changing through life and the events that effect it. Dangerous to assume whatever system you have accepted will be accepted by all.
Its easy to come up with all kinds of theories about "what works" and "how things should be" but that is usually based on our limited awareness of the spectrum.
Personally I think marriage should be a la carte. Choose which legal benefits and obligations you want, what timeline (renewable) and so forth.
The problem is that the legal one size fits all rule of marriage doesn't fit most. And, that size differs from country to country and even within countries (eg US states).
The obvious difference is that in Western traditions, a married couple has explicitly vowed to stay with one another through thick and thin, until death separates you.
If you trust your partner to keep their word, there is comfort in knowing you are a team, no matter what crazy stuff happens.
If your partner refuses to make that promise (that promise being what makes it a marriage, IMO), well, you might want to re-evaluate how much you trust them and why.
History has shown that a sizable chunk of those promises were either lies, or unrealistic. Many who refuse to marry do so out of an acknowledgement of how effed up the marriages they have seen are. People who are truly untrustworthy are just as likely to lie about their level of commitment to a relationship anyway.
Consider the "unrealistic" part. How certain can you be that it will work out? Do you think all marriage-ending issues are foreseeable?
One source tells me that 41% of first marriages end in divorce. Divorce today is not generally considered a pleasant process, yet they go through with it, which is evidence that there was something seriously wrong with the relationship. Put differently, 59% of marriages were sufficiently correct choices.
Suppose couples spent an additional year on scrutiny before getting married. How much would that improve the success ratio? To 70%? 80%? What about the remaining 20%? Once they discover their choice was sufficiently wrong to want to go through with one of today's divorces, what should they do? Stick it out no matter how bad it gets? Really? Or if they do divorce, then what have you achieved? If they delayed by three years and got to 90%, would that be worth it?
I cannot guarantee that a marriage will not end in divorce, no.
I do not think all marriage-ending issues are foreseeable. There are often red flags that are flagrantly ignored, but things like substance abuse and spousal abuse are not always predictable. They can begin unexpectedly well into a marriage.
I do not think you should always "stick it out". Keeping promises does not have the same moral weight as many bigger issues.
The obvious example is abuse - the victim should get out, then get a divorce (my understanding is that abusers rarely change their stripes, but are very prone to appear to do so long enough to lure their victims back).
I don't advocate for huge delays before marrying. I don't think that really helps a lot. Going really fast is not wise, but waiting for years does not magically solve problems.
Instead, I advocate for a totally different approach to dating than most US inhabitants take.
Dating should be about figuring out if you should get married, not about having fun or impressing the other person. The last two goals form a tiny, tiny subset of the first one, and I can't tell that most people I have seen dating are aware of that.
There's a phrase I love from the recent Picard show - "the way of absolute candor". When we first met, we engaged in something not unlike it (we called it "brutal honesty"), and it was a lot of what drew us to each other.
While our marriage has been full of hardships and difficulties (and, yes, plenty of surprises), we both had a decent idea what we were signing up for before we said our vows. That was largely due to the way we approached dating, and our extreme honesty with each other.
So far, we have stuck with it. At this point I have a hard time seeing what could break us apart, apart from major personality and behavioral shifts due to neurological failures (injury, mental illness, etc).
That's in large part due to how much work we did before getting married, both on the relationship and on solving difficult, ugly problems together. Marriage, especially parenting, is mostly about doing hard, unpleasant work together.
God / the universe helped us on that front, by dropping multiple hard things on us while dating. One example would be the time her apartment got destroyed in a flash flood weeks after she moved so we could live in the same area and see each other regularly.
That sucked, but boy did we get to understand each other better. Taught us a lot more about how married life might go than playing video games or going out for French cuisine.
Not saying you should destroy your girlfriend's apartment to see how she copes, but you can seek out hard, frustrating, meaningful things to do together regularly while dating, instead of a steady diet of all fun, all the time.
You can also be rigorously honest up front - my wife had as good an understanding of my failings as I could give her within weeks of meeting each other (many of the unpleasant surprises we've had in our marriage have come down to things we didn't realize about ourselves, so both parties were surprised by the discovery).
Take those approaches and add a reasonable amount of time before marriage (we dated for a year then were engaged for six months), and I think you could significantly lower the divorce rate.
Granted, you'd probably lower the marriage rate a lot too. That might not be such a bad outcome, though.
I don't get your example. The 41% figure says nothing about the partners being together before at all, or for how many years.
Also if you've been together for 5 years and then marry, why would that change the chance to be divorced after another 5 years versus marrying after 2 and then divorcing after 8?
The current concept of marriage is very recent, maybe 200-300 years old. Marriage was never romantic but it was a political and business deal. Historically, very few people married their lovers. Powerful men married powerful women and then they had harems. Not only that wives often recruited younger women for their husbands' harems.
Most peasants were married through arranged marriages that benefitted their families.
For those reasons and others my partner and I haven’t married, but we file our taxes here in Canada (and are legally considered, in Ontario specifically) as a “common-law” couple. We wear rings and have decided on what works for us, between us.
It’s working quite well for us for now. We’ve been together longer than any of my old, married (and since divorced) friends have.
> Perhaps we should be looking at other approaches to the problem of unhappy marriages, in particular the due diligence of people in choosing their partners - especially when there are children involved or intended.
As someone who's been through a divorce, I think this is the wrong perspective.
The law should always be considered a backstop for when other solutions fail, not a first solution to aim for.
For instance, if you have a disagreement with your neighbor about a fence or a tree or something, you should always go and talk to them first. If you're a business and have a disagreement about the contract with some other business, you should always go and try to sort it out without lawyers first.
Making it possible to sue your neighbor or your business partner when discussion fails to produce results doesn't mean that you're "trivializing neighborhood relations". Well-written and consistently-applied laws means, ideally, that when you have those conversations with your neighbor or your business partner, you never end up going to court, because everyone knows exactly what's going to happen.
The law in the UK is already written to try to encourage people to save their marriage: In the absence of adultery or physical abuse, you can generally only file for a divorce after you've been separated for 2 years; and this includes provisions for short stints of living together to give it a second chance. (E.g., if you separate for 6 months, come back together for 3 months, and then separate again, the "clock" doesn't start over, and you can file for divorce after another 15 months.)
By the time that people move out, the relationship is almost always in a really bad state; and by the time you've lived separately for 2 years, there's almost zero chance you're going to get back together. At that point what you have is no longer a marriage, and the divorce proceedings is only recognizing legally what has already happened relationally.
I mean, yes, we as a society should also be trying to prevent disaster-in-waiting marriages from happening; and should be investing time trying to strengthen marriages -- even marriages which are relatively stable.
Making divorce difficult won't save marriages, but it does add all kinds of perverse incentives. If you have to prove adultery or abuse to file, then suddenly you have to bring in private investigators to spy on people, and sling around reputation-destroying accusations in public, making the whole thing a lot more nasty.
Ironically this industry seems to only have come under scrutiny because the hired gun wasn't professional enough and/or took his job far too seriously, depending on your perspective.
In 2010, Takeshi Kuwabara was sentenced for the murder of his lover, Rie Isohata. What captured the world’s imagination was not the tragedy itself, but the fact that Kuwabara was a wakaresaseya – a professional hired by Isohata’s husband to break up their marriage.
Once Isohata learned of the deception, she angrily attempted to break off the relationship with Kuwabara. Unwilling to let her go, he strangled her with a piece of string. The following year, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
There is definitely a dark rom-com movie script to be made from this story.
Edit: I just remembered, there is an old Italian film which has a similar plot. It's called Divorce, Italian Style and is about a man who wants to divorce his wife, but can't due to the local laws. He spends the movie trying to get his wife to take a lover, so that he can shoot her "in a rage of jealousy" and get a reduced sentence for manslaughter. It's pretty funny, I highly recommend it.
I can't help but think that at the other end of that spectrum lies the british infiltrated cop that once he got his mark arrested left the girl he was with undercover and the kid they had together, without any support, and with his former associates fully knowing, with the british court saying she didn't deserve any child support or anything.
I don't know where the line is or how it should be done, but I know as much as I know anything that it's not the proper solution if it ends with "and some innocent bystander live was (temporarily) ruined in the process".
(I used that exemple because it's the one I always remember as the court case marked my mind, but I'm sure most countries have an equivalent)
"At least 20 of the undercover officers deceived women into intimate, sexual relationships.
The women had no idea that they were having relationships with men who were police spies. Some of the undercover officers had relationships with more than one woman during their undercover missions.
After the existence of the covert operation began to be exposed in 2010, the women grouped together and successfully took legal action against the police. So far, the police have paid compensation to at least 12 women who were deceived by the undercover officers."
When the British shop Lush tried to criticize this practice the UK Chair of Police Calum MacLeod launched a campaign against them too, asking them to apologize to the police for the criticism of this behaviour: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/01/cosmetics-reta...
Minor clarification: Calum MacLeod was the chair of the Police Federation, which is effectively the trade union for police officers in England and Wales (below the rank of Superintendent -- senior officers have their own association). The Federation is often pretty vocal whenever police come in for criticism, so its actions here weren't out of the ordinary. (Which doesn't justify them, of course.)
If you are willing to leave the "dark" out of it, the Argentinean film "Un novio para mi mujer" (A boyfriend for my wife) is about a man who wants to leave his wife and hires someone to seduce her.
The film has been remade in several countries, so I guess there is a market for your idea.
There was also a French movie called "L'Arnacoeur" that came out about a decade ago with a similar plot - "Alex and his sister run a business designed to break up relationships. They are hired by a rich man to break up the wedding of his daughter. The only problem is that they only have one week to do so." [0] [1]
There's also "Marriage, Italian Style" with Marcello Mastrioanni and Sofia Loren, a story of a troubled marriage. Not at all a romcom, but it has some comitragic elements.
Wonder if the companies are sometimes hired by a third party wanting to break up someone else's marriage or would that be outside the realm of possibility in Japanese culture?
Apparently in the US there's a couple of companies that will hire an attractive woman to take you to a bar, get you drunk and attempt to get you to take them home in your car so you get a DUI and makes it easier for divorces not to go your way.
If you're getting divorced, wait until it finalizes no matter how hot she is.
In this example, it would be an attractive woman approaching you at a bar after the paperwork is filed. Once you have the DUI on your record, you're now too dangerous to take care of our kids...
Similar services exist even in Europe. I remember reading about it some time ago and managed to find it. https://www.alibinamieru.sk/ They provide multiple of services including: fake alibi for cheaters, testing fidelity of your partner, breaking up relationship by seducing someone (either lover of cheating partner when you want to end their relationship or directly the partner when for instance parents of the second partner want to prove that the chosen one is no good etc.) It's hard to say how popular the service really is though.
Why? As far as I can see, they don't force anything on anyone. One could also make the argument that if a partner falls for this (or hires them), the relationship is already on rocky ground, so they don't do much harm either.
One can argue that the conduct is detrimental to the victim's interests and that the conduct constitutes common law fraud [1] because (1) the saboteur tells the victim "I like you", (2) the saboteur knows this is false or reckless, (3) the saboteur intends for the victim to leave the victim's current relationship, and (4) the victim left his or her current relationship.
I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice. If your partner is actively sabotaging your relationship, it may not be a good idea to stay with that person.
[1] in Texas: In order to prove fraud, a plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant made a material representation that was false, (2) the defendant knew the representation was false or made it recklessly as a positive assertion without any knowledge of its truth, (3) the defendant intended to induce the plaintiff to act upon the representation, and (4) the plaintiff actually and justifiably relied on the representation, which caused the injury. Ernst & Young, L.L.P. v. Pac. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 51 S.W.3d 573, 577 (Tex. 2001).
I'd compare it more to the law of entrapment: You need to show that you did the action because it was an officer convincing you; the fact that you were convinced/talked into doing something is not enough. Which seems parallel to our case: The spouse in question was open to cheating; the fact that it was a detective (or fraudster) on the other side seems irrelevant.
But I see your point, it feels fraudulent since you prove one side is bad by doing something (possibly) equally as bad, but only one thing is regarded in court. Though it will probably look bad if it's found out.
> I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice.
Me neither, but I think it's an interesting topic.
> If your partner is actively sabotaging your relationship, it may not be a good idea to stay with that person.
Of course. But that was the point all along, I guess ;)
These things are sad and immoral, on that we agree. However, government and legality should not be arbiters of human morality; it's a huge and inefficient and stupid mechanism that should only be used to solved issues that absolutely cannot be solved without it and it's monopoly on violence.
This kind of thing is better solved by society itself, and, judging by slowly, but steadily improving social norms, declining violence and improving human rights all around the globe, it is.
You guys can split the difference. Regulate and tax it. In the article is says: "There might be wakaresaseya agents operating without licences and in the shadows", implying it's regulated. Maybe you have to pass an exam to be an wakaresaseya!
On one hand, I agree because it seems there's a host of very deceptive things going on.
But I see some positive things as well, from the article: "assistance with romantic reconciliation", "preventing revenge porn", "help a wronged spouse collect consolation money" and "obtain evidence of adultery".
It's frequently not a life sentence in the US, and a "life sentence" in the US is actually not a life sentence, as people can get out on parole in under two decades (exact time varies by jurisdiction).
It is a "life sentence" really, as the offender is only released on parole and is on licence for the rest of their life, so can be required to abide by license conditions or be recalled to prison at any point.
(assuming US law is similar to the UK)
I think when most people hear "life sentence" they think the person will spend the rest of their life behind bars, so the phrase "life sentence" doesn't clearly communicate what actually happens.
I started reading and could not finish. This is a horrible story. It will hurt your mind for a long time to come. Please read with caution as the story is very graphic in the horrible things the girl suffered
I believe it isn't in most Western countries. Life sentence is not only about the crime committed. It's to isolate individuals who just cannot be redeemed.
Here in Canada I immediately think of this one murder back in 2008 a man killed another man on a greyhound, beheaded him then and then cannibalized him [1]. He only spend 8 years in jail then was released. He was deemed mentally not responsible for his crime and released.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean
Carnivorous plant produces very nice smell for insects. Once insect lands on the plaint, it cannot move away and will be eaten by the plaint. Relationships are working the same way. Women will take away everything you have or earns and you will end up homeless & broken on the street.
This is an article describing exactly what (a certain type of) private detectives do in Japan, Europe, North America, and other places, and using a word in a different language, 'wakaresaseya' in order to depict it as a strange and novel 'Japanese phenomenon'.
I don't think there's anything like this in the United States. In Europe, I have no idea. There's private investigators, but nothing of the sort of forming a months-long flirtation/affair in preparation of divorce.
But there article is very fair...there are LOTS of strange and novel Japanese phenomenon that fascinates people in other countries. Even in this article, they describe hiring actors to appear as family members at events. That certainly doesn't exist in the United States.
Ironically, I would have found it weirder if it hadn't been Japan. There's lots of japanese constructs that seem really weird to us on the outside (Hell, there's an anime airing right now about renting a girlfriend), so it's easy to get used to it as Japanese culture just working a bit differently.
Adultery doesn't affect custody battles in the US (at least in the vast majority of states). There is no benefit in getting your spouse to cheat on someone.
The list isWisconsin, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Nebraska, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Hawaii, Florida, Colorado and California. In other states there are no fault divorces available, but you can also file a divorce based on various faults, including adultery.
Actually the US has 50 legal systems for divorce - one for each state.
That said the last state to support no fault divorces was New York in 2010, so you're right. (Though a no fault divorce option wasn't there for me when I was considering one in 2002.)
This was exactly my reaction as well. They tease the price by saying it's only for rich people and then give us a price that seems far too cheap for the effort involved, and affordable by most middle-class families in Japan. In the United States I can't help but think that would cost $100k or more.
This is quite common in India, but the twist being they are not hired by those in relationship but their parents! Usually due to caste differences.
Here is an interview of one such agency by Niel Patel in his Indian startup show, where she(founder) proudly claims to end relationships on behalf of clients(parents). If you thought that was awful, wait till she tells at the end 'There are no regulations for Private Investigative Agencies in India' ! (Neil just laughs it off).
Kinda seems like the real purpose of this saboteur service isn't so much to engineer the end of your relationship so you don't have to, or just to acquire legal proof so the law will let you two divorce, but rather to engineer the end in such a way that it financially advantages the employer of the saboteur.
She cheated on me, so I get to keep the house.
The headline and framing of the story hides the greed/selfishness/manipulation/exploitation.
(Of course, the bigger part of the actual event is the murder, but the story minimizes that too.)
Seems similar to a police sting operation. Providing the opportunity to commit a crime but not forcing them to, so when they do it is used against them. In this case it isn't an actual crime, but an action that is disadvantageous in divorce. But given the comparison, if someone is okay with police stings should they also be okay with this?
In cultures without no-fault divorce, manufacturing fault like this is sometimes necessary for the divorce to happen at all, regardless of the eventual settlements.
This business is only relevant due to tragic laws making divorce difficult.
In Denmark, you can divorce by electronic signature and without any reason. If both spouses agree, they can be divorced immediately. Immediate divorce is also possible in case of
- adultery,
- two year physical separation due to disagreements
violence,
- sexual assault,
- bigamy,
- child abduction.
Otherwise, a 6 months separation period is needed.
The article indicates that most cases are actually relating to ending an affair, rather than initiating a divorce. E.g. someone is hired to seduce a husband’s mistress, and cause the mistress in turn to end the affair.
Seems like a crazy amount of deception and effort to avoid confrontation, but perhaps that also hints at the root cause?
The article also notes that the marriage can’t be terminated easily if contested, which suggests to me that it can also be easily terminated if both parties agree.
> If both spouses agree, they can be divorced immediately. Immediate divorce is also possible in case of...adultery,
According to the article, that is also the case in Japan. It is only contested divorces that require proof of adultery. Now, it may further be the case that contested divorces without something like adultery are easier in Denmark, and that might be the better system, but avoiding outlier cases like this hardly seems like the reason.
I'm baffled that marriage laws are so weird, obtuse, and outdated, pretty much in most of the world. In particular, but not limited to, property and wealth subdivision.
> Meanwhile, a colleague of Kuwabara’s photographed them in a love hotel, and Isohata’s husband used these photographs as evidence for a divorce. (Such evidence is needed when a Japanese divorce is contested.)
unintended consequences... policy decisions have real world implications. Marriage should not be a slave contract.
The classic Astaire-Rogers film, The Gay Divorcee, turns on a not-that-different practice that was common in England in order to get a divorce where a professional co-respondent would be hired to enable a divorce on the grounds of adultery. I turned up this article on non-fictional uses of co-respondents: http://www.queensilver.org/gstory2.htm
> The continuing existence of the wakaresaseya industry suggests that money and deception may be uncomfortably threaded into relationships more often than people recognise
Really? They needed a wakaresaseya industry to know that? Isn't it obvious that in most societies around the world a man can't get pussy unless he has money and can lie? Don't 99% of women lie about their appearance with fake nails, hair etc?
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] threadI'm genuinely curious how many of these relationships could actually be salvaged by good counseling, once they've reached the point where someone is willing to hire a saboteur.
they probably haven't reached that point, compared to other societies, their law just makes evidence a requirement if the divorce is contested.
so the incentives are misaligned for different behavior.
For instance, I always thought that Canadians are nice but an American saved me from this prejudice and told me that they are just polite.
Trying to prevent people from making the same mistake is what real nicety is.
The first step is mediation with a court appointed mediator which can take a long time... If mediation doesn't work, the next step is to go to court in which case having some dirt on the spouse that doesn't want to divorce is crucial in influencing the judge deciding the case.
Bare in mind that Japan has no legal joint custody. Also, culturally it's normal for one parent to have zero contact with children after divorce.
Here is an account of the divorce process［1］. I do not know if all the information is still relevant today.
［1］http://www.debito.org/thedivorce.html
Previously couples had to apportion blame for the marriage breakdown, which encouraged it to be an adversarial and rancorous process.
No doubt there are positives but it's difficult to see how it isn't just another step along the path of the trivialising of marriage.
Perhaps we should be looking at other approaches to the problem of unhappy marriages, in particular the due diligence of people in choosing their partners - especially when there are children involved or intended.
I'm not suggesting a method or solution, just pointing out making divorce easier is not universally considered a good thing or moral win.
Maybe we've taken marriage too seriously for hundreds/thousands of years, and we're finally progressing as a global society to realize that till-death-do-us-part might be too big of a commitment for some 20-somethings. After all, what's really the difference between being married and living with your significant other besides some laws that are based on the old views of marriage.
(Granted, with kids things get tricky, but making sure parents stick around and help raise kids to me seems rather independent on whether a couple was married or not - seems more to do with someone's inner beliefs)
Marriage is not girlfriend/boyfriend.
It's far more serious, and making it a commitment to be contemplated deeply before entering - and not easily breakable - is the whole point of highlighting the problem of trivialising it.
Marriage is rooted in religion, for better or worse, and these thoughts about making marriage some unbreakable for-life bond are based on religious beliefs hundreds of years old. Catholics couldn't divorce, ever! We live in a more enlightened age, one where religious thoughts have less to do with forging our societal beliefs. Can't we progress with our thoughts on marriage as well? Marriage for life would mean for many an unhappy and unfulfilling life. Perhaps a life of violence or depression. Is that we want to force people into? A life without choice, a life without happiness?
So it’s not wrong to say marriage has its roots in religion, but the cause to create marriage hasn’t gone away even if religion isn’t a factor: Can you imagine how difficult it was for a single parent (especially women) to raise a child alone, a few millenia ago? I think it’s fair to say that it caused major problems.
Even today raising children is still extremely difficult. Raising a productive citizen is another order of magnitude of difficulty.
Ecclesiastical annulments are grossly misunderstood by most Catholics and non-Catholics alike[1]. They are not "Catholic divorce." And yes, the tribunal system can be gamed, but if you actually believe you should realize that God isn't going to be fooled. And if you don't believe then why do you even care what the Church thinks?
[1] See below reply
Because your friends/neighbours/relatives may be Catholics, and you may care about your appearances.
In my experience with religious folks, keeping God happy is not the sole driving force behind most of their lives to the exclusion of all else. It's a framework around their lives, but not always priority #1.
Given that, annulments are essentially a catholic divorce, with a little bit of magic added.
Around a billion people, give or take, in China would disagree with you.
Heck Japan isn't exactly a religious country.
With a few exceptions, the concept of marriage coincides with agricultural societies.
Also, parents invest a lot in their child's marriage, e.g. downpayment for a house, car, etc, for their child (singular!), so that adds even more pressure to "make things work".
How come you suddenly need 50% less emergency cash per person just because you're married?
Think about how many people within your own extended family do this? Take a guess, deliver this talk to them and track through life how many follow the path.
We chimps display a wide spectrum of Personality traits and an even wider spectrum of Needs, which are constantly changing through life and the events that effect it. Dangerous to assume whatever system you have accepted will be accepted by all.
Its easy to come up with all kinds of theories about "what works" and "how things should be" but that is usually based on our limited awareness of the spectrum.
The problem is that the legal one size fits all rule of marriage doesn't fit most. And, that size differs from country to country and even within countries (eg US states).
If you trust your partner to keep their word, there is comfort in knowing you are a team, no matter what crazy stuff happens.
If your partner refuses to make that promise (that promise being what makes it a marriage, IMO), well, you might want to re-evaluate how much you trust them and why.
Refusing to commit yourself seems more like perpetuating that problem than addressing it, to me.
Maybe I'm missing something.
One source tells me that 41% of first marriages end in divorce. Divorce today is not generally considered a pleasant process, yet they go through with it, which is evidence that there was something seriously wrong with the relationship. Put differently, 59% of marriages were sufficiently correct choices.
Suppose couples spent an additional year on scrutiny before getting married. How much would that improve the success ratio? To 70%? 80%? What about the remaining 20%? Once they discover their choice was sufficiently wrong to want to go through with one of today's divorces, what should they do? Stick it out no matter how bad it gets? Really? Or if they do divorce, then what have you achieved? If they delayed by three years and got to 90%, would that be worth it?
I do not think all marriage-ending issues are foreseeable. There are often red flags that are flagrantly ignored, but things like substance abuse and spousal abuse are not always predictable. They can begin unexpectedly well into a marriage.
I do not think you should always "stick it out". Keeping promises does not have the same moral weight as many bigger issues.
The obvious example is abuse - the victim should get out, then get a divorce (my understanding is that abusers rarely change their stripes, but are very prone to appear to do so long enough to lure their victims back).
I don't advocate for huge delays before marrying. I don't think that really helps a lot. Going really fast is not wise, but waiting for years does not magically solve problems.
Instead, I advocate for a totally different approach to dating than most US inhabitants take.
Dating should be about figuring out if you should get married, not about having fun or impressing the other person. The last two goals form a tiny, tiny subset of the first one, and I can't tell that most people I have seen dating are aware of that.
There's a phrase I love from the recent Picard show - "the way of absolute candor". When we first met, we engaged in something not unlike it (we called it "brutal honesty"), and it was a lot of what drew us to each other.
While our marriage has been full of hardships and difficulties (and, yes, plenty of surprises), we both had a decent idea what we were signing up for before we said our vows. That was largely due to the way we approached dating, and our extreme honesty with each other.
So far, we have stuck with it. At this point I have a hard time seeing what could break us apart, apart from major personality and behavioral shifts due to neurological failures (injury, mental illness, etc).
That's in large part due to how much work we did before getting married, both on the relationship and on solving difficult, ugly problems together. Marriage, especially parenting, is mostly about doing hard, unpleasant work together.
God / the universe helped us on that front, by dropping multiple hard things on us while dating. One example would be the time her apartment got destroyed in a flash flood weeks after she moved so we could live in the same area and see each other regularly.
That sucked, but boy did we get to understand each other better. Taught us a lot more about how married life might go than playing video games or going out for French cuisine.
Not saying you should destroy your girlfriend's apartment to see how she copes, but you can seek out hard, frustrating, meaningful things to do together regularly while dating, instead of a steady diet of all fun, all the time.
You can also be rigorously honest up front - my wife had as good an understanding of my failings as I could give her within weeks of meeting each other (many of the unpleasant surprises we've had in our marriage have come down to things we didn't realize about ourselves, so both parties were surprised by the discovery).
Take those approaches and add a reasonable amount of time before marriage (we dated for a year then were engaged for six months), and I think you could significantly lower the divorce rate.
Granted, you'd probably lower the marriage rate a lot too. That might not be such a bad outcome, though.
Also if you've been together for 5 years and then marry, why would that change the chance to be divorced after another 5 years versus marrying after 2 and then divorcing after 8?
Most peasants were married through arranged marriages that benefitted their families.
It’s working quite well for us for now. We’ve been together longer than any of my old, married (and since divorced) friends have.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6532711/common-law-vs-marriage/
As someone who's been through a divorce, I think this is the wrong perspective.
The law should always be considered a backstop for when other solutions fail, not a first solution to aim for.
For instance, if you have a disagreement with your neighbor about a fence or a tree or something, you should always go and talk to them first. If you're a business and have a disagreement about the contract with some other business, you should always go and try to sort it out without lawyers first.
Making it possible to sue your neighbor or your business partner when discussion fails to produce results doesn't mean that you're "trivializing neighborhood relations". Well-written and consistently-applied laws means, ideally, that when you have those conversations with your neighbor or your business partner, you never end up going to court, because everyone knows exactly what's going to happen.
The law in the UK is already written to try to encourage people to save their marriage: In the absence of adultery or physical abuse, you can generally only file for a divorce after you've been separated for 2 years; and this includes provisions for short stints of living together to give it a second chance. (E.g., if you separate for 6 months, come back together for 3 months, and then separate again, the "clock" doesn't start over, and you can file for divorce after another 15 months.)
By the time that people move out, the relationship is almost always in a really bad state; and by the time you've lived separately for 2 years, there's almost zero chance you're going to get back together. At that point what you have is no longer a marriage, and the divorce proceedings is only recognizing legally what has already happened relationally.
I mean, yes, we as a society should also be trying to prevent disaster-in-waiting marriages from happening; and should be investing time trying to strengthen marriages -- even marriages which are relatively stable.
Making divorce difficult won't save marriages, but it does add all kinds of perverse incentives. If you have to prove adultery or abuse to file, then suddenly you have to bring in private investigators to spy on people, and sling around reputation-destroying accusations in public, making the whole thing a lot more nasty.
In 2010, Takeshi Kuwabara was sentenced for the murder of his lover, Rie Isohata. What captured the world’s imagination was not the tragedy itself, but the fact that Kuwabara was a wakaresaseya – a professional hired by Isohata’s husband to break up their marriage.
Once Isohata learned of the deception, she angrily attempted to break off the relationship with Kuwabara. Unwilling to let her go, he strangled her with a piece of string. The following year, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
There is definitely a dark rom-com movie script to be made from this story.
Edit: I just remembered, there is an old Italian film which has a similar plot. It's called Divorce, Italian Style and is about a man who wants to divorce his wife, but can't due to the local laws. He spends the movie trying to get his wife to take a lover, so that he can shoot her "in a rage of jealousy" and get a reduced sentence for manslaughter. It's pretty funny, I highly recommend it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_Italian_Style
I don't know where the line is or how it should be done, but I know as much as I know anything that it's not the proper solution if it ends with "and some innocent bystander live was (temporarily) ruined in the process".
(I used that exemple because it's the one I always remember as the court case marked my mind, but I'm sure most countries have an equivalent)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29743857
Trying to remember the name of the book it is covered in, too
Edit: Book was "Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police" iirc
"At least 20 of the undercover officers deceived women into intimate, sexual relationships.
The women had no idea that they were having relationships with men who were police spies. Some of the undercover officers had relationships with more than one woman during their undercover missions.
After the existence of the covert operation began to be exposed in 2010, the women grouped together and successfully took legal action against the police. So far, the police have paid compensation to at least 12 women who were deceived by the undercover officers."
"
The film has been remade in several countries, so I guess there is a market for your idea.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1465487/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_20
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqGIU4L5GUI
If you're getting divorced, wait until it finalizes no matter how hot she is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Sleep_Well
If it was popular, wouldn't they try to hide how popular it is? ;)
I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice. If your partner is actively sabotaging your relationship, it may not be a good idea to stay with that person.
[1] in Texas: In order to prove fraud, a plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant made a material representation that was false, (2) the defendant knew the representation was false or made it recklessly as a positive assertion without any knowledge of its truth, (3) the defendant intended to induce the plaintiff to act upon the representation, and (4) the plaintiff actually and justifiably relied on the representation, which caused the injury. Ernst & Young, L.L.P. v. Pac. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 51 S.W.3d 573, 577 (Tex. 2001).
But I see your point, it feels fraudulent since you prove one side is bad by doing something (possibly) equally as bad, but only one thing is regarded in court. Though it will probably look bad if it's found out.
> I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice.
Me neither, but I think it's an interesting topic.
> If your partner is actively sabotaging your relationship, it may not be a good idea to stay with that person.
Of course. But that was the point all along, I guess ;)
It is already illegal, for example, to engage in long term stalking/harassment.
And the actions of these people feel to be very similar.
These things are sad and immoral, on that we agree. However, government and legality should not be arbiters of human morality; it's a huge and inefficient and stupid mechanism that should only be used to solved issues that absolutely cannot be solved without it and it's monopoly on violence.
This kind of thing is better solved by society itself, and, judging by slowly, but steadily improving social norms, declining violence and improving human rights all around the globe, it is.
Then what is the point of having government and legality at all?
But I see some positive things as well, from the article: "assistance with romantic reconciliation", "preventing revenge porn", "help a wronged spouse collect consolation money" and "obtain evidence of adultery".
I think when most people hear "life sentence" they think the person will spend the rest of their life behind bars, so the phrase "life sentence" doesn't clearly communicate what actually happens.
But there article is very fair...there are LOTS of strange and novel Japanese phenomenon that fascinates people in other countries. Even in this article, they describe hiring actors to appear as family members at events. That certainly doesn't exist in the United States.
< stares >
< Goes back to watching 'Pretty Woman' >
The list isWisconsin, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Nebraska, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Hawaii, Florida, Colorado and California. In other states there are no fault divorces available, but you can also file a divorce based on various faults, including adultery.
That said the last state to support no fault divorces was New York in 2010, so you're right. (Though a no fault divorce option wasn't there for me when I was considering one in 2002.)
Here is an interview of one such agency by Niel Patel in his Indian startup show, where she(founder) proudly claims to end relationships on behalf of clients(parents). If you thought that was awful, wait till she tells at the end 'There are no regulations for Private Investigative Agencies in India' ! (Neil just laughs it off).
[0]https://www.indianstartupshow.com/episodes/akriti
She cheated on me, so I get to keep the house.
The headline and framing of the story hides the greed/selfishness/manipulation/exploitation.
(Of course, the bigger part of the actual event is the murder, but the story minimizes that too.)
Not entirely unlike bosses who give employees they want to fire impossible tasks until they quit of their own volition.
In Denmark, you can divorce by electronic signature and without any reason. If both spouses agree, they can be divorced immediately. Immediate divorce is also possible in case of
- adultery,
- two year physical separation due to disagreements violence,
- sexual assault,
- bigamy,
- child abduction.
Otherwise, a 6 months separation period is needed.
In most divorce cases, no law suits are needed.
Does this include an agreement on alimony/child support/custody? Or are there automatic arrangements for that in Denmark?
That seems to be where things get nasty in the US for the most part. It's not the literal divorce but the second order effects due to it.
Seems like a crazy amount of deception and effort to avoid confrontation, but perhaps that also hints at the root cause?
The article also notes that the marriage can’t be terminated easily if contested, which suggests to me that it can also be easily terminated if both parties agree.
According to the article, that is also the case in Japan. It is only contested divorces that require proof of adultery. Now, it may further be the case that contested divorces without something like adultery are easier in Denmark, and that might be the better system, but avoiding outlier cases like this hardly seems like the reason.
Still seems very cheap?
unintended consequences... policy decisions have real world implications. Marriage should not be a slave contract.
Really? They needed a wakaresaseya industry to know that? Isn't it obvious that in most societies around the world a man can't get pussy unless he has money and can lie? Don't 99% of women lie about their appearance with fake nails, hair etc?