Slow Life, Slow Sex: While some choose single motherhood, Japanese women pick abortion

The Mainichi Shimbun
December 2, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071201p2a00m0na018000c.html

In Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Denmark, nearly 50 percent of all children are born out of wedlock, meaning women in these countries don't need the institution of marriage to be able to have children and bring them up.

The high rate of children born out of wedlock is possibly because there are laws to protect equality and no social stigma related to not being married.

Children are not discriminated against simply because their parents are not wed and society treats them like all other children, giving them the same social and economic status as "legitimate" kids.

Things couldn't be more different in Japan, where women often become virtual single mothers looking after the home and family while their husbands are turned into corporate warriors. Incidentally, the rate of children born out of wedlock in Japan is just 1.7 percent.

Just recently, a 26-year-old woman came to see me at my clinic to talk about her pregnancy. Her partner is a 28-year-old man and they had been seeing each other since their college days almost five years in the past. When she was worried about having fallen pregnant, my belief was that there was really only one choice she could make. And she did make a choice: to abort the baby, which wasn't the choice I had thought she would make.

"I just don't have the confidence that this guy is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with," she told me. Now, I'm a firm advocate of the belief that abortion is an option women can take in terms of their rights and their health, but I was shocked by her response.

I countered.

"You may not know whether he's the right one now, but you may marry in the future. What about marrying now and thinking you've just had kids earlier than expected? There's no guarantee that if you do marry him some time down the track and have kids that you may one day want to tell them that they may have had an older brother or sister who wasn't born. And, I have to add, it's not like he forced you to have sex. That was a decision you chose to make, wasn't it?"She wasn't too keen on what I had to say, though, and dismissed my arguments.

From marriage to divorce. I've heard that the reasons given recently for many divorces are differences in values and "character differences." When I hear "character differences," I think the possibility is usually "differences in opinions about sex." I wonder how many readers out there have been acting a bit too selfishly and haven't done enough to make sure their partner's needs are satisfied? Is your marriage like this?

On Sept. 29, the Cabinet Office released the results of a survey that showed for the first time a majority of Japanese opposed the idea that "men should work and women stay at home." It's the fifth time the survey has been carried out by the government since 1992. In the first survey, 60.1 percent agreed with the idea and only 34 percent opposed, but the number of those who agree men should work and women stay at home has dropped in every poll taken since. Maybe many readers have a mistaken idea of marriage nowadays being what it has always been about. Are you living the type of married life you would like? If not, what is it about the marriage you aren't happy with?

I'm in my mid-50s now and I can't deny that marriage is not what I had imagined it would be like when I was young. My sex drive has declined, our kids are grown up and out of the home and our lifestyle is boring. In a worst case scenario, I could even find myself joining the growing ranks of those going through a middle-age divorce. Touch wood! (By Dr. Kunio Kitamura, special to the Mainichi)

Dr. Kunio Kitamura was born in 1951. He graduated from Jichi Medical School and through his 30 years of research, is now the "voice of Japanese sexuality." Among his many books are "Shiawase no Sex (Happy Sex)," "Piru (The Pill)" and "Karada no Hon (The Body Book)."

（Mainichi Japan） December 2, 2007