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More widowed Japanese severing ties with aged in-laws

TOKYO — An increasing number of Japanese, especially women, are choosing to cut legal relations with their in-laws after the death of a spouse, to avoid having to care for aged in-laws.

An elderly woman pushes a walking aid as she walks on a street at Tokyo's Sugamo district, an area popular among the Japanese elderly, in Tokyo on Jan 14, 2015. Reuters file photo

An elderly woman pushes a walking aid as she walks on a street at Tokyo's Sugamo district, an area popular among the Japanese elderly, in Tokyo on Jan 14, 2015. Reuters file photo

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TOKYO — An increasing number of Japanese, especially women, are choosing to cut legal relations with their in-laws after the death of a spouse, to avoid having to care for aged in-laws.

With Japan’s greying society resulting in more elderly people requiring nursing care, the decision to sever ties is becoming more prevalent as surviving spouses look to break tradition and escape familial obligations.

A widowed writer in her 40s, who uses the pen name Mayumi Sugihara, took the difficult decision, ending ties with her husband’s parents one-and-a-half years after her spouse’s death.

Ms Sugihara and her husband, who was more than 10 years her senior, had been married for 17 years. They lived with his parents, a situation that was never a happy one for Ms Sugihara.

When her chronically ill husband died, Ms Sugihara and her parents-in-law fought over funeral arrangements and the inheritance of his assets. The situation deteriorated to the point where she was forced out of her home.

“After the shock of my husband’s death, and then being forced out of my home, I felt like my livelihood was being threatened,” she recalled.

A friend told her that it was possible to sever ties with her husband’s family, and recommended that she do it to find peace, and closure. After completing the process, Ms Sugihara says the dark clouds lifted, leaving her feeling freed from the torment she was enduring.

“I finally cut off my ties with that family,” she said. “Now that they are entirely unrelated to me, even under the family registration system, the hatred I was feeling has receded. I can now look forward.”

There is no legal requirement for surviving spouses to provide nursing care to parents-in-law, making the cutting of ties for that reason a more symbolic decision. But women often do it because it provides peace of mind and an escape from what is a traditional Japanese family responsibility.

The termination of familial relations with in-laws does not require their consent, and once the process is completed they are not even informed. Nor does it affect the inheritance of assets from the spouse’s estate. The number of such cases is still small, but they are growing. There were 2,783 cases in fiscal year 2015, up from 1,772 in fiscal year 2005.

Cases are most often brought by women who are reluctant to be burdened with the care of their aged in-laws, or would prefer not to be buried alongside them.

Family counsellor Harumi Takakusagi received some 30 inquiries about the termination of in-law relations last year, up sharply from the one or two per year she had seen in the past, possibly because the procedure has come to be more widely known through the Internet. Most inquiries came from women in their 40s and 50s who live with, or close to, their parents-in-law and want to avoid ending up having to nurse them, according to Ms Takakusagi.

“Aged people take it for granted that they will be cared for by their daughters-in-law, but often the latter struggle because they want to live their own lives after the death of husbands,” she said.

Under the pre-war civil code, a woman who loses her husband was allowed to end her relationship with his family only if she remarried. The rule was changed under the post-war civil code to give women freedom and choice. Article 730 of the revised code says: “Lineal relatives by blood and relatives who live together shall help one another,” but it does not legislate a duty to do so.

Fumio Tokotani, professor of family law at Osaka University, says people are going through the process of cutting ties perhaps because they misunderstand their legal obligations, or lack of.

“The values of postwar generations are changing, meaning ties to in-laws are seen in a different light these days,” Professor Tokotani said. KYODO

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