IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE IN JAPAN?

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1695, 24 August 1904, Page 73 (Supplement)

IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE IN JAPAN?

A recent issue of a Japanese statistical pamphlet in Japanese and French reveals some curious facts of asocial character. v According to this report there were in Japan in the year 1889, 297,428 marriages. The„ age of marriage seems to he nearer that commonly prevailing m Europe and America than most persons suppose. Of men, only 5 married under the age of 13, and only 108 under the age of 6. Nearly 5400 married between the ages of 16 and 18. The number of marriage:? increased rapidly up to the age of 24, when it was rather more than 26,000. After that-age fewer and fewer men married, and less than 1000 married between the ages of 48 and 49, though a few men married in extreme old age. In the case of girls, there were only 58 marriages under the age of 14, and the age at which the greatest number of marriages was reported was between 20 and 21. Only about 900 women were reported as 'marrying between 40 and 41, but perhaps Japanese women are prone, like thoir "Western sisters, to cease having birthdays after they pass 30. There were a few marriages of very old women, up to and beyond the age of 80The civil state of the women marrying is significant. More than 247,000 of the whole number are reported as maidens, and nearly 8600 as widows, while nearly 33,500 were divorced women. Astonishing are the divorce statistics of Japan. In this report it is shown that, with fewer than 300,000 marriages

reported in the year, there were more than 66,000 divorces. The proportion of divorces to Carriages is about 1 to 4. It is a rare thing for a woman in Japan to seek divorce, though husbands frequently give sufficient cause. The fact that the care of the children would fall upon the wife should she obtain a divorce, is a sufficient deterrent lo the mothers who are poor, and the condition of extreme subjection suffered by nearly all Japanese women'probably deters wealthy wives from seeking divorce.