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Going solo: the Japanese women rejecting marriage for the freedom of living single
More Japanese women are in work and unmarried than ever before, rejecting long-held double standards about domestic
life. But cultural norms have not yet caught up.
The bride wore a birthday cake of a dress, with a scalloped-edge bodice and a large hoop skirt. A veil sprouted from her black bob. Moments before the wedding began, she stood quietly on a staircase, waiting to descend to the ceremony.
“Wow”, she thought. “I’m really doing this”.
This was no conventional wedding to join two people in matrimony. Instead, a group of nearly 30 friends gathered in a banquet room in one of Tokyo’s most fashionable districts last year to witness Sanae Hanaoka, 31, as she performed a public declaration of her love – for her single self. “I wanted to figure out how to live on my own”, Hanaoka told the group, standing alone on a stage as she thanked them for attending her solo wedding. “I want to rely on my own strength”.
Not so long ago, Japanese women who remained unmarried after the age of 25 were referred to as “Christmas cake”, a slur comparing them to old holiday pastries that cannot be sold after 25 December. Today, such outright insults have faded as a growing number of Japanese women are postponing or forgoing marriage, rejecting the traditional path that leads to what many now regard as a life of domestic drudgery. The percentage of women who work in Japan is higher than ever, yet cultural norms have not caught up: Japanese wives and mothers are still typically expected to bear the brunt of the housework, childcare and help for their ageing relatives, a factor that stymies many of their careers. Fed up with the double standard, Japanese women are increasingly opting out of marriage altogether, focusing on their work and newfound freedoms, but also alarming politicians preoccupied with trying to reverse Japan’s declining population.
“I thought, ‘If I get married, I will just have to do more housework’”, says Kayoko Masuda, 49, a single cartoonist who stops by to croon in private at a One Kara solo karaoke salon in Tokyo. A separate section is cordoned off for women, behind sliding doors marked “Ladies Only”. “I loved my job, and I wanted to be free to do it”, she says of her unmarried status. Last year, the number of couples getting married hit the lowest level since the end of the Second World War, according to government estimates. It was the sixth straight year of decline in the nation’s marriage rate, which is falling at a much faster clip than the drop in Japan’s population overall. Not surprisingly, the number of births in Japan – a country where few people have children out of wedlock – is also tumbling. Last year, the number of babies born in the country fell to the lowest level since at least 1899, when record-keeping began.
(Disponível em: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/marriage/japan-women-marriage-relationship-independence-happy-life-a9042636.html. Acesso em 4 de setembro de 2019. Adaptado.)
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