Mainichi Daily News
March 28, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070328p2a00m0na003000c.html
The Democratic Party of Japan has decided to submit a bill to the Diet to reduce the time that divorced women have to wait before they can get remarried from six months to 100 days.
The party plans to submit the lawmaker-initiated bill to the Diet as early as the beginning of next month, together with the Japanese Communist Party and Social Democratic Party.
On Tuesday a Liberal Democratic Party project team reached an agreement on reducing the prohibition period, meaning both the ruling and opposition parties are likely to accept the reduced period of 100 days.
In February 1996 a legislative council hammered out the framework for revisions to the Civil Code to reduce the remarriage prohibition period for women to 100 days, but the ruling parties had been hesitant to adopt the proposal.
However, discussion on a reduction resurfaced recently during discussions on revisions to a Civil Code article that states children born within 300 days of a woman's divorce are presumed to be the offspring of her former husband.
Amid rising divorces and remarriages, the reduction of the remarriage prohibition period would make it easier for women to get remarried. (Mainichi)