Japanese views on cohabitation?

There are guys who would like to test the waters in every kind of situation and then choose what's right for them. Do girls think the same way?

Hi Hugh,

What do you mean by "every kind of situation"? And are you asking about people in the US, or in Japan, or just in general?

Eye of the beholder situation.

Being from Sweden I can add that our view is that marriage without prior cohabitation is close to socially unacceptable. To us it is a display of irresponsibility and a sad lack of interest in the well-being of future children.

This in response to the ''what is right and not right'' -undertone I see in this thread. I believe it is more a matter of cultural norm than ''right or wrong''.

I'm thinking of moving to tokyo and was wondering how tolerant people are towards foreign unmarried couples. Especially a mixed-race couple (a white woman and a black man).

My partner and I live in SE Asia now, and we do get some odd looks and comments. Luckily we found a good landlord. Would people be reluctant to rent us an apartment, or would they not care?

Alison

Cohabitation is only a very recent thing in Japan and only a fraction of a percent practice it. And those who do, do so(as some of you have already pointed out,) in view of getting married in the coming months.

I write because I think some of you who do not know Japan well might be underestimating the meaning of this in Japan. I assure you, most Japanese people will NOT view cohabitation, as some of you expressed, "testing the water". If you do start living together with this understanding and without opening your eyes to the impact it has to the Japanese family concerned, you may not be able to catch signals sent to you in form of certain comments or behaviors, and you will be just try to give you an explanation by labeling them as being so conservative and therefore labeling yourself as liberal.

Let me tell you what I think, because I think it's different how we position cohabitation in Japan than in the West.

Let's say there is the "dating" stage on one end and "married" stage on the other, on a single line. Where would you put "cohabitation"? I think the miscommunication(if I may call it as such) arises from the difference in the distance you put cohabitation from one end to the other.

Those who think "testing the water" might be considering cohabitation closer to the "dating" stage. On the other hand in Japan, we put it closer to (and often as part of) the "married"(or semi-married) stage.

I think, being Japanese myself, we understand that if you are still at the "testing the water" stage, you are not ready for marriage yet, therefore no right to living together(which is part of marriage).
If you absolutely want to live together without getting married, then you need permission from the family to do so, but they would most likely ask how serious you are about the relationship with the person(because for them, it's darn serious!), meaning whether you have the intent to get married. If not, you probably won't get permission or even if you do, not get encouragements or even get negative comments and reactions all the way until you do.
You may say the decision to live together or not only concerns you and your partner and not the family. Wroooong. The family tries to keep "good" communication with neighbors have or friends. Family news is always on their general topic, so questions like "how is your son/daughter doing? Is he/she married yet?" would be brought up nearly every time they would meet.
If you decide to live together, the first thing your future Japanese mother-in-law or father-in-law would have to face is, how to explain this situation.

Imagine you just want to "test the water". And the neighbor of the parents of your partner has the notion
that cohabitation is part of marriage, but the parents know that their son/daughter still has a "testing period" to go through. More than likely, they will not say anything about you two living together. It can be quite tough for the parents if you are living near them and neighbors see that you and your partner are simply living together. Cohabitation without the intent of marriage is not well perceived at all.

It is true that when you live together, you will see things in your partner that you hadn't seen when you were just dating. But in Japan, people put importance on the "kejime" or "isagiyosa". Commitment when taking a decision and sticking to the position you decided to take. Consequences that arise from this decision are to be dealt with.

So I guess cohabitation approached from the "let's test the water" attitude would be perceived as not having the commitment and therefore not welcomed by the Japanese family.

"Testing the water" might be a practical approach. If you don't get along well, you can always back off so it leaves you space. Sure. But it is also true that relationships have become more of a commodity. I don't know if this has something to do with the society of consumption or if we're just used to getting what we want in a second and then throwing stuff away when we don't like them. It leaves us perhaps with the illusion that there is someone better out there, a Mr or Ms Perfect for you, numerous possibilities...

We have become more individualistic and this is not so compatible with having a married life which in a way binds us to a specific individual and having responsibilities you don't necessarily want. And since there are ups and downs in a relationship, we might want to see through before really taking that step to marriage...

But there are moments in life when you just have to jump, and in that sense, I like the Japanese approach to make that commitment, even if you may not know everything about your partner. If things don't turn out exactly the way you want, well, that's life too. We will probably go on testing and then if things we don't like appear, say it's not how I want to spend my life and go out looking for that Perfect person... So we DO need that social pressure from family or people to jump. It helps to see if we have the (sorry for the expression, but...) "balls" to take that step, or not. If you're not up to it but still want to just live together, well, then you're seen(if you're a guy,) a wimp...

There was a lot of digression in what I said and of course that doesn't reflect the whole of the society. But I just wanted to get an opinion out as a Japanese on this topic.

I completely agree with Kazuhiro's stance on cohabitation- very well said.

An American girl

Everyone here has been describing cohabitation as a 'testing the water' phase of a relationship, and that it's not the final commitment. Well for a lot of people it is. Many people in the western world, for what ever reason, don't want to get married, but that doesn't mean that they're not in a long-term committed relationship. When they move in with their partner, they have every intention of staying with them forever. You don't have to get married to be in a relationship, and it doesn't mean you love each other any less. So how is that looked upon in Japan?

I'm an English guy living together in Japan with my Japanese girlfriend. We've had no problems or objections. No questions of marriage, but of course her mum is hinting at her to get married. We first met in Australia and lived together then but didn't tell her family for some time. Did eventually and they are fine. Her family are from the countryside, but seem to have a pretty relaxed attitude.

The short answer is:

In Japan,

1) Couples legally married
2) Couples not legally married but consider each other as lifelong partners
3) Couples testing the water by cohabitation

are three different things. You can't really compare one from the other.

The middle-length answer is that 1) is most accepted by the society. 2) is fighting its way through law and usually call themselves "bessei-kekkon (marriage under different surnames)". But there is a reason that marriage under different surnames is not legally accepted yet. The reason is that there is too much debate in the society.

I agree with Uco in that 1) is accepted by society, 2) fighting way through.
It's comprehensible, as in 2), the actual state doesn't reflect the form.

I wouldn't say that those who live together but choose not to marry do not have the intention for serious long-term relationship. I am sure many of them do. But getting married isn't like changing clothes.

It's not just about signing papers. Of course we have to go through a lot of bureaucratic stuff but it requires a lot of participation from both people in a couple, and through the process it involves families and friends who are closest to you, so sharing most important things. Some may say a wedding is merely a party and as long as you have feeling, it doesn't matter if you have it or not. But it DOES. Why, because it involves social recognition. And having various legal rights(and responsibilities) is, in part, a result of that.

As far as cohabitation and marriage is concerned, we in Japan expect form
to coincide with state. And we put importance in that. As explained earlier, cohabitation is part of married life here. If you live together but have no intention of setting the form that goes with it, of course you don't get social recognition because in this case, not getting married means not ready for commitment. And if you do live together without making the commitment, wow, I don't want to imagine the inner frustration of the father that has a daughter dating this kind of guy!

It is just hard to believe that any Japanese family would except cohabitation with a guy that doesn't declare the intention of marriage. If they do, there has to be some darn good reason for letting that situation continue, so good that it supersedes the frustration(social pressure for rectifying the situation).

Anyway, this social pressure is a good thing, I think. It keeps us from beating around the bush. If you live together and have the intention of long-term relationship, make that commitment.

While I understand Kazuhiro's view on the matter I have a completely different view. I've been with my boyfriend for more than 8 years now and we have no intention of getting married, never had. Are we "testing the waters"? Not at all, that phase is long gone. So why don't we get married? Because marriage means nothing to us. We're both atheists so a religious ceremony makes no sense to us and when it comes to putting our names on a piece of paper, well we just don't feel the need for that. We love each other, we're commited to each other, we're happy together and there's absolutely no need to go through pointless formalities.

Andromeda 18, it not just the Japanese...many people in Western countries feel the same.. My family for example live in France and aren't that religious. In fact in France a religious wedding isn't official and not necessary. The only legal marriage is one performed by the Town Mayor at the local city hall.My grand parent, my parents, many of their friends and relatives etc. had arranged marriages as society has long believed that marriage is a union between 2 families, not 2 people. This the traditional view ,going back 1000 of years. Long ago poor people who didn't own a business or land didn't have to be married. Even the Church didn't care..Anyway when I was old enough I was told that a marriage had been arranged for me. I knew the girl but had never really talked to her about life, the future etc.besides not being attracted to her at all. My dear mom was shocked that I wanted to talk to my future spouse. She believed that marriage was a business. As long as the 2 parties were decent people, hardworking and healthy and agreed to raise children, everything was OK. When I pointed out that their marriage and the marriages of many people we knew was,at best,like co-workers in a business,without much in common and no friendship, I was called disrespectful, selfish etc. Eventually I had to leave the country, thought we keep in touch. Of course now common-law couples have many of the right and privileges of married people so a formal ceremony isn't that necessary.

As part of a mixed race, unmarried couple living together in Tokyo, I can say that neither my boyfriend or I have felt judged or mistreated based on our relationship status/living situation. He may get a bit of a (joking) hard time at work from the guys for "acting married", as we're pretty young, and I'm quite sure we have our building's concierge really confused as to our status, but they just politely call each of us by our own family name, and don't ask any questions. In fact, my young (Japanese) female coworkers who know about my living situation seem to think the whole thing is pretty romantic :). As for stares on the street, I feel like people in Tokyo are used to seeing foreigners and really don't really pay much attention. Particularly if you introduce your significant other as your "partner" the way you did in your post, I doubt anyone would pry further or think anything of it :).

Whatever the couples' personal views, it may matter to the community, especially away from big cities in Japan. Example, promotions may be jeopardized or if you want to teach children, the community may think you are not a good influence, etc. Men might be more immune from society's disapproval or maybe they don't notice/care? Seems like a Japanese woman's position is more precarious. Any thoughtful man would surely think carefully about this.

Even in the US, some states never recognize "common-law" marriage (long-term cohabitation). This means that even if you lived together for more than 7-10 years, you are not "next of kin"; your partner's birth parents will be in charge. If your partner becomes hospitalized, you may be denied visitation, patient updates (unless permission granted by parents or legal paperwork drawn in advance). Social Security may be denied to a "widow" because she is NOT a "wife" (there was no legal marriage). I do not mean to be negative or sound harsh but these rules were set in place to protect society. They may be changed as society changes. Just be aware of them.

I think what is important here is to know how it is perceived in Japan in general, not so much what individual foreign people who come here ''think'' they are perceived. Mind you that Japanese people show a friendly smile and often are nice to people who obviously ''look'' foreign, especially if they are caucasian. In this respect, I would value Kazuhiro's view.

one thing to consider is that almost everyone here is a foreigner.

if you are dating a japanese person their family probably knows that their son/daughter likes foreigners. the entire family is a lot more likely to accept strange ideas that would drive normal japanese-blood-only families insane.

that being said i live with my japanese gf in tokyo and we have no problems, however my gf is still extremely shy about telling people our situation.

that's just her thing though as her friends are all fine with it and don't see it as anything unusual. the young generation of japanese seem to be quite different from their parents in that respect.