Joanna has some harsh words for people who think that Japanese women are alien creatures that have nothing else on their mind except to find an American male.  “The problem basically seems to be that if a woman (in these cases, a Japanese woman) is extra-pushy, men will give in to them and marry them. Those women knew what they wanted, and played by the "all's fair in love and war" maxim. To the jilted women, I say: if he left you, he doesn't deserve you. No one brainwashed him or forced him to marry someone else. He was obviously weak enough to be so easily influenced. Find a man who is in love with your personality: he'll have quite a lot of difficulty finding a replacement for that!” advises Joanna.

The consensus seems to be that women may make an aggressive effort to charm a person once they make up their minds.  Men, on the other hand, take the reverse approach – be aggressive in the beginning and then take her for granted.  Several experts claim that this behavior is rooted in human beings’ lives in the caves.  A vast majority of Japanese women have a rather narrow mission in life – simply because of the social setup in Japan that values marriage more than anything else in a woman’s life.  It is often joked in Japan that while men go to universities to party and land a job upon graduation, women go to find a husband.  Even in this century, a woman who is not married by a certain age (typically less than 30 in most parts of Japan – higher in the urban areas and lower in the rural areas), faces tremendous pressure from her friends and family members who will try to either set up an omiai (arranged date) or push her to attend parties designed to introduce men and women to each other.  

While women in the past had to settle with whoever they could find once they reached that critical age, some of the women these days are becoming bolder by either refusing to marry at all or marrying only when they wish to.  Marriage has always been more of a social arrangement and an agreement among families rather than coming together of a couple in serious romance.  As traditional roles of men and women get redefined with the rapidly changing socio-economic structure, even divorce rates are steadily rising though they are nowhere close to the rates in other G7 countries.  Such women face totally different set of challenges in Japan, especially if they do not have children.  Having a child allows these women to focus on raising it but without a child, their lives in Japan appear to be without meaning and forces them to think of another marriage even though they are savvier now.  

Baxter Cox who is married to a one-time divorcee from Japan sympathizes with them.  In Japan, he tells us, “If a woman gets a divorce, it shows up on the koseki, or family history. A divorce listed on a koseki is considered a black mark, and makes it really hard for suitable Japanese women to get married in their own culture. So why not get married to an American? America has and always will be the land of second chances.  I'm married to a beautiful young Japanese lady who deserves a second chance.  And she's getting it from me.”  

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