japan marriage age
 

i was lookin online and it said that you can get married in japan at 16 if your a girl but if your a boy you gotta be 18. How come you cant be a boy and get married at 16?

mhh but then we have a dilemma here^^

really strange if true!

To protect the women I suppose,then again Americans can be quite big perverts.

EDIT:Well I couldn't say only the Japanese were perverts!

how does that protect the women if she 16 and the guy is 18?

So that...16 year old men aren't...bad? Actually when you put it like that it doesn't make much sense does it?

16yr olds are not bad,a 18 yr old perv would be more likely to do stuff to the 16 yr old.

What do Americans have to do with this law?

Nothing.

Also, parental consent must be given to people marrying under the age of 20.

This law was changed in the 1990s, when the marriage age was 13 for "women" and 16 for "men".

so the male still has to be 18?

I am sure he said male 16

he said it was 16
now it's 18

and if you want to get married at 16 or 18 you're in serious need of medical help

Really?

What is wrong with wanting to commit at a young age?
I can see taking issue with 16 - that is a bit too young - but I wouldn`t see a problem with a serious individual wanting to get married at 18.

To put it simply, I don't believe that 18 year olds have experienced or developed enough to make any commitment of that magnitude, even the most "serious" of them.

I've met people who were married that young, either forcefully through a pregnancy, or through intoxicating puppy-love, and I can honestly say my impression was that both of them wish they'd waited.

It's just my personal opinion though :)

I would say that it really depends on the person. The great majority probably would be better off not making a commitment that early, but it is a bit of a stretch to imply that everyone who might want to get married at that age is insane.

Disclaimer; Got engaged at 19, married at 20, and have been happily married for 10 years now. Not once regretted it.

Statistically, I have to agree with Real James. We often talk about how the divorce rate in the US is 50%, but without going and looking up all the numbers again, you can see that the 50% rate is really misleading when you look at age and education factors. For people that get married 18 or younger, the divorce rate is like 75%, and that is WITH the understanding that a good % of those are religious types that don't believe in divorce (so the % might be higher if everyone believed in divorce). At 21 or younger the numbers are better, like 60% divorce rate. If I remember correctly the biggest jump came at people who get married with a high school education, and those that marry with a college education. There was a double digit reduction in divorce rates (20s or 30s) when both parties are college educated. It is probably safe to assume college graduates are over the age of 22, as well.

Of course there are wonderful stories of success despite the odds, but odds-wise, I wouldn't encourage anyone to get married under the age of 24.

I definitely wouldn`t encourage anyone to get married so young, but don`t think that anyone having an interest in commitment at 18 is "in serious need of mental help". That is the bit I took issue with. Wanting to get married, even when you`re young, isn`t quite a sign of mental illness.
I can`t say that I am a fan of the common thinking that commitment = something horrible.

My Disclaimer; I was engaged at 19, married at 20, and divorced at 24 lol
I feel that you were lucky Nyororin, and clearly I wasn't.
I feel that the reasons mine didn't work would be virtually non-existent were I to get married again now at a later age.

I feel that what you did was taking a risk.
Taking a risk isn't bad, but taking a risk with something so serious, is what I was referring to as being in need of medical help.

I'm glad your marriage is happy and perhaps it's easy for you to say it was worth it to take the risk seeing how it worked out.
I'm really happy that there were no children in my marriage when things went south.

I may be jaded by my experience, and you may be seeing it from a nicer perspective, I'm not sure where the truth lies. I've been trying to use "I feel" a lot since I have no clue lol.

In my opinion, people change a lot before the age of 30, and even more before 25 and infinitely more before 20, and are entirely different humans before 16.
Promising to stay with another person who's changing just as much as you are is like buying a house without looking at it or choosing your career by drawing cards out of a hat, in my opinion.
I really do feel you got lucky.

Strongly agree to this.. as you've said previously, I am not even looking at how mature people can be at a young age, there are so much more to experience, it will suck to regret such a life changing decision.

Most, if not all of the people I knew who got married before 22 are already divorced..

Totally agree with this!

I also believe that you cannot be in Love with only one person for your entire life. Love weakens up after time and everthing becomes boring and normal.. this time frame depends on every relationship.

The best examples to this rule, are the celebritys from today. People who can choose who they want to date and spend their life with.
Everyone of them gets divorced at one point.. which shows you, that Love isn't forever.
Now you have several options to live with that.. one would be to have an open realtionship for example.

But I do believe that there is one exception out there, which would be to marry a true Asian girl or boy. Then it would depend on you and on you only if you can Love him/her forever.. or if you are the reason for the break up, cause she will not be.

yes mate asian girls are the best.but i wonder if asian girls would like foreign guys who had like host hair or hair like hyde?

I think you guys are dillusional pal. Race has nothing to do with it.... Not a single race can say that they will not be the reason of a break up or divorce. Its a "relationship" because more than one party is involved... you can't clap with one hand, things don't work out because of issues, issues that both side needed to deal with but fail to... not a signle race can say that they are not the reason for it...

You guys really need to set your expeaction right with Asian, we are no different from any other race that reside on this planet......

It's not about the race, it's about their mentality and culture.

Now, I know that Japan is a very Western socialised.. but when you look at real Asians who crew up without any contact to the Western society. They would never cheat on you or try to divorce with you. It has to come from the guy with the Western mindset. But if he Loves her forever, they will never divorce.

It's just the difference in the cultures. People are different and in Asia divorces or cheating on your partner are not a topic because of peoples mindset.

The action to cheat or not, or to divorce or not is definitely related to people's mentality and their view of value.

But I am telling you that you are not correct, I have no idea where that stereotype came from. 4/6 of my cousins are divorced, 1 of them due to a cheating wife. These are cousins thats older than me by a good 20 years, the divorce happend long ago when everyone still live in Asia

Just because people have no western exposure doesn't mean that they will not suffer from a marriage, if things goes wrong, people will do something about it, its not like they have no tv and don't get exposed or the concept

And lets face it, the "Asian" girls you are exposed to and so attracted to, how did you come across them in the first place? Some form of meida, media thats produced in big towns, not up in the mountain... so what you are attrated to, is purely appearance, appearance that belongs to big citys like Tokyo, Yokohama, Seoul, Beijing, appearnce that is 65%+ dressed up by materials, makeup and clothing... materials that do not belong to a place where there is no Western exposure per say....

The perfect "Asian" that you are referring to, if exist, will not be from big cities. Is it possible, yes definitely, but it has nothing to do with the race or the culture anymore, its the individual...

Examples
 

Just to clear things up, i will give you 2 out of 100 of examples i can find you

1. A friend of mine, Canadian born Chinese, went to Japan to teach English a few years back. He wasn't in Tokyo, I don't remeber where he was, but according to him "Far from Tokyo", and its a very very remote area. He got hitched with a Japanese girl that worked at a local minjuku. When he brought the girl back in Canada, things were great until she got her status. She just walk out one day

2. My wife's co-worker, typical geeky 300 lbs sweaty caucasian guy. He went to China three years ago, to some sub-class farming city where kids will surround him and follow him (or any foreigners) because its fascinating to them. Anyways found himself a girl that he really liked, practice mandarin like nut because the girl don't speak a word of English, finally got her in and married her early 2009. She didn't walk out, but she divorced him as soon as she got her landed immigrant status.... and because she has no income at all, he is still supporting her

That for the traditional girls you were talking about...

i was referring to asian girls are freakin hot.:vsign:

Japanese and Korean yes..... And until they remove their make up that is

Oooh, I don't know if I should even step in here, but it is super hilarious to see white guy act like he knows more about Asians than a Chinese-born Asian :rolleyes:

And as far as the "Real Asians would never cheat on you or try to divorce with you." things goes... You know there's classical Japanese Literature dealing with subjects like cheating and divorce, right? I'm sorry but that has to be one of dumbest things I've read in a while. If you can't speak or read any Asian language I doubt you really know much about Asia.

On the original subject:

I'd assume the reason that girls can marry at a younger age than boys is so that they can start having children while young and fertile, and those children will be legitimate. At 16, a girl will have finished middle school (as far as I'm aware it is not mandatory to go to high school in Japan) and if she gets pregnant she stands a chance of the birth not causing her too much damage, whereas a younger girl is more likely to have medical problems because her own body is still developing. Japanese law seems to take the view of children being the main reason to get married - along the same lines, a divorced woman must wait six months before getting married again, so that if she gets pregnant there won't be a question of which husband is the baby's father (Well ... there might be, but that's the idea)

Maybe way back when, but that doesn't really make sense now. The age of consent in most prefectures in Japan is 18, so the only way a 16-year-old girl could 'legally' get pregnant is with a boy who is also underage. If the boy can't marry the girl to make a legitimate child, what's the point? And I doubt such a thing happens very often anyway; the average age of first-time mothers in Japan is 29.2 years old.

My feelings on this; People tend to become more "settled down", and more serious in life pursuits as they age. When starting out as someone who is already quite serious, with a very realistic view of things, and with very realistic goals - I do not believe that age is necessarily an issue. (Within reason, of course.)

From my point of view, the biggest reason marriages made between younger people tend to fail isn`t because of *age* as much as it is because of unrealistic expectations - basically a romanticized view of how a relationship will progress. A lack of education plays a much larger part in this than age - but the younger you are, the less likely you are to have had a decent education.

In the end, if you`re intelligent and educated enough to realistically judge whether the relationship will work, you`re also intelligent enough to judge when it likely will not. As there aren`t that many relationships that will work out in the long term, the odds are against you finding one. Age is not the factor - correlation is not causation. It`s just that you`re much more likely to be more educated when older - whether it be a book education, or educated via experience. Poor choices result in poor marriages.

I don`t encourage anyone to get married while young, but at the same time I`m not going to write off a relationship just because those involved aren`t past a certain age. I don`t think there is something wrong with someone wanting to commit or to be in a serious relationship at 18 - but at the same time I would expect them not to make the choice to commit hastily.

I definitely agree that children should not come into the picture at all until you have quite a lot of stability. We may have gotten married when I was 20, but we waited until we could buy a home before deciding to have a baby. (And were all moved in by the time the baby was released from the hospital.)

-------------------------------------------

Anyway, back to the original topic.
Or maybe not...

You`re confusing different types of love. Obviously that initial spark and thrill of a new relationship is going to fade once a relationship is no longer new. If the relationship was founded ONLY on that spark, well, of course there isn`t going to be anything left once it fades. Long term relationships are founded on different types of love.
I don`t know why I am bothering to reply to you though, as you have shown how open you are to listening to others in the past...

I can do nothing but laugh at this.
It might be a good idea to look at the history of divorce in Asia. If you were correct, it would not exist until there was a western influence in Asia - right?
That is most definitely not the case - and is often the other way around. (Due to missionary activity and the advance of Christian views on marriage.)

Japan had a pretty high rate of divorce in the 18th and 19th centuries - I recall reading it was something like 1 in 6 marriages.

Now back to the original topic;

I think that you`re on the right track.
It looks that in the past, it was fairly common for the marriage to be arranged at a very early age, and for the girl to enter the husband`s household. With mandatory schooling, the age she could move from one household to another was set - as chances are, she would have too many responsibilities in a new household to attend school.
I do not believe it has as much to do with pregnancy or childbirth, but more with education.

I am a bit curious why there is such fascination with this though... Most of the world is about the same in terms of age. Japan is not strange or unique.

Very interesting Nyororin. And thanks for the link, you're right, Japan isn't that much different, though I was just thinking it was odd that boys couldn't get married at 16 too. BTW in Massachusetts (US) boys can get married 14 and girls can get married at 12! Good lord D:

It sounds like you and I are basically in agreement then.
While age isn't the factor which directly identifies a person's ability to decide to get married, it does correlate a lot, an awful lot!

You have to agree that you are the great great minority when it comes to individuals in your position.

@Bobby, I've met more cheaters, male and female, here in Japan than I did in Canada :)