2 wk. ago • 99%

TIL: In Japan, if your spouse dies you can divorce your in-laws

soranews24.com Posthumous divorce on the rise in Japan as a way to distance oneself from in-laws

Tell your late spouse's family how you really feel. Tell them with a divorce.

Posthumous divorce’s technical but less popular name is a “notification of marital relationship termination” (inzoku kankei shuryo todoke) which means one is officially severing ties with the family of a deceased spouse. What’s particularly strange about it is that it doesn’t really serve any purpose for a vast majority of people aside from a government-approved official statement that someone finds their in-laws unbearable.

25 comments

What’s particularly strange about it is that it doesn’t really serve any purpose for a vast majority of people aside from a government-approved official statement that someone finds their in-laws unbearable.

That's a pretty good purpose. Everybody can save face by taking part in bureaucracy. That sounds like I'm being facetious, but I'm serious. Think about the alternative: avoiding them awkwardly all the time or telling them to screw themselves directly, which will engender negative feelings. At least with the bureaucracy, the sentiment gets filtered through a impartial, uncaring medium.

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- Filling out a form to stop talking to someone seems way more of "engendering negative feelings".
  
  Konrad Hermes energy
  
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  "oh no, not the crack slam!!"
  
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- To me it feels more like someone has gone out of their way wayyyy further to involve bureaucracy and make it official when just saying "I would rather not" would do.
  
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  Yeah this just feels like government approved passive aggression.
  
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- I would think that it might not serve a government purpose, but it could serve a social one.
  
  For a lot of societies, care of the elderly is supposed to be performed by the children. A marriage has the implication that care isn't just for their own parents, but the in-laws as well. I expect a divorce like this servers that familial connection, people no longer have to care for their in-laws.
  
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  This is a HUGE deal in aging Japan, so this makes sense.
  
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I would imagine that it also has to do with the family registry. If a woman marries a man, she is taken from her own Family Registry and entered in her husband's. I would imagine that upon the husband's death nothing changes for the wife, but she has the option of returning to her own family registry.

I'm not 100% sure that this is how it works, or the reason for this termination, but it seems like a valid one.

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- Yes, I'm pretty sure you're right. I get to deal with that registry as an American married to a Japanese woman and the irony is I don't have this problem some the registry practically refuses to acknowledge my side of the family exists. But it's a big deal, and the termination likely is so the person doesn't have that connection of families in the web of family tree data the government tracks.
  
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  I'm a Canadian, and I was married to a Japanese woman. She was on the family registry, and our children were, but I was a comment. Way to show a commitment to treating all people equally, Japan!
  
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t doesn’t really serve any purpose

As someone who had unberable in laws, yes it does. If it happened to me I would be divorcing them while still.in the funeral

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Do you have any legal responsibilities towards your in-laws in either direction in Japan?
And can your in-laws also divorce you, when your partner- their child dies?

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oh man knowing the number of folks that love their spouse but not the spouses family I could see this happening a lot if it was a thing. The only reason I had anything to do with you people was because of this person who is now dead so I officially renounce you.

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But you have to stray married to your in-laws if you divorce your spouse.
It's a custom to protect people from unnecessary not-theirs-pet loss just because they live with the other family.

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