People in Japan are turning to their friends and acquaintances for marriage to avoid the dating rigmarole.
According to Rocket News 24, 60% of Japanese women and 76% of Japanese men in their 20s have no romantic partner. Nonetheless, 80% of unmarried Japanese even regard marriage as a major life goal. Consequently, the desire to tie the knot without finding a romantic partner and developing a relationship becomes quite a conundrum.
The solution comes in the form of ‘kosai zero nichikon’, which roughly translates to ‘marrying without dating’. Japanese actress Maki Horikita married co-star Koji Yamamoto in 2015 after just a month, sparking a number of Twitter users to share their stories of shotgun weddings.
Choosing to marry friends allows people to avoid time and financial commitments that would otherwise come with conventional dating. Some even believe that by eliminating the emotional exchanges of dating, which can be tiresome. A column in Joshi Spa! magazine equated hunting for a partner to marry in the conventional sense to committing suicide.
It is not uncommon for Japanese to marry out of parental pressure and obligation. Joshi Spa! magazine reports that the rate of arranged marriage divorces dwarfs the divorce rate of traditional modern marriages.
