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By Sharon Moshavi Joyful El, a Shinjuku bridal shop, has introduced a product line for the bride who is truly expectant: maternity wedding dresses. So far, sales are brisk. The best seller is an ivory organdy with an empire waist and plenty of gathers to help the dress expand for a growing waistline. The dresses make little attempt to conceal the bride's ballooning belly. "Most of the brides are comfortable about being pregnant. They just want to look good," said manager Yoshie Takenouchi. Pregnant brides are becoming less taboo, especially in urban Japan. Parents at first are embarrassed, relatives and friends will likely make snide remarks about the "order" of events being incorrect, but when the baby comes, all is usually forgiven. An estimated 15% to 20% of Japanese brides are already pregnant when they walk down the aisle, up from less than 5% just a decade ago. Most of them are in their twenties. The rise of shotgun weddings, or what has been dubbed "dekichatta kekkon," literally, surprise marriage, is attributable to several factors: a rise in pre-marital sex, a stigma against out-of-wedlock children, and an increasingly ambivalent attitude toward marriage. But there is also something else at work: an inability to make decisions. This trend does not indicate any kind of sexual freedom or feminist revolution. Instead, it signals that Japanese women are afraid to make real, hard choices in their lives. Confronted with more options about work and family than any generation before them, they seem afraid to choose just what it is they want. Many young Japanese women today say they want to put off marriage as long as they can, but as the dekichatta kekkon statistics indicate, they're not really deciding just when it is they want to marry and have a family. But by not using birth control, they're simply leaving their lives up to fate. |
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It seems that in many ways, the dekichatta kekkon phenomenon is a reflection of the ambivalence many Japanese young women and even men too feel about their place in society. On the one hand, they prefer a carefree life to the responsibilities of marriage. Yet raising a family remains a strong social obligation in Japan. As a result, both men and women end up using pregnancy to push themselves into something they don't necessarily want, but know is expected of them. The Japanese philosophy of shikata ga nai, literally, "I can't help it," is at play here. Faced with a wider world of options than was open to their parents, many young people don't know which to select. They aren't confident enough in their own decisions. They want some outside force to tell them what to do. Before her pregnancy, Hitomi Aratake, a nurse, had been hesitant about marrying her boyfriend. Was he the right man for her, did he have a secure enough job? But when she became pregnant, all that uncertainty instantly disappeared. In her mind, she was playing a game of Russian roulette, letting a pregnancy Ñ or lack of one Ñ decide her life for her. |
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Women can count on the fact that Japanese fathers feel highly compelled to marry the expectant mother. According to a recent survey, more than 70% of men say they would marry a pregnant girlfriend. "I would expect it from any guy to ask me to marry him if I were going to have a baby," said Kaori, whose husband did indeed marry her after she became pregnant. There might be another reason behind the trend: Japan's economic malaise. Financial uncertainty has made many men hesitant to marry. So for some women, having a baby has become a way to get a reluctant man down the aisle. Health professionals in Japan bemoan the lack of information and communication about family planning, especially as pre-marital sex has grown. A decade ago, 30% of unmarried women were sexually active. Now that number stands at 50%. Yet attitudes toward family planning remain shockingly uninformed. The birth control pill, legalized more than two years ago, has not caught on. The decision to use condoms is usually left up to the man. Many here believe that fate is what makes a baby, that every pregnancy is an accident. You realize that when you sit down and talk to someone like Hitomi Aratake. Though she had been having unprotected sex for several months, somehow her pregnancy was a surprise. "It was really unexpected when I found out I was pregnant, it was a shock," she said. Chiaki Deguchi and her boyfriend had stopped using condoms. Like many couples, they had never discussed birth control Ñ or the decision to stop using it. "I think pregnancy is a thing to happen naturally, not to plan," said Deguchi. This is the year 2002. Pregnancy is something that can be planned, albeit not with 100% results. Health officials acknowledge they have a lot of work ahead of them to get women in Japan to realize that. And to take control of their lives. |
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Sharon Moshavi is the Tokyo correspondent for ÒPacific Time,Ó a syndicated American public radio program produced in San Francisco. Prior to moving to Japan in 1999 she spent several years living and working as a journalist in Jerusalem and New Delhi. She has also contributed to The Boston Globe, Newsday, Business Week, Forbes, People magazine, National Public Radio, the BBC, and other publications and radio programs. |
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