Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan

For centuries, women have been expected to endure bad marriages. When divorce did happen, it was most often on the husband's initiative. Now, not only in the West but around the world, people who never thought seriously about divorce are fantasizing about it. Others are newly anxious that their spouses might leave them. Intimate Disconnections tells the fascinating story of what happens when a society that conceives of itself as being grounded in heterosexual marriages comes under sudden stress. Japan is one such society in profound transition-these days one of three marriages will end in divorce, a stunning rise from just a few decades ago. As men and women consider divorce, or work to avoid it, they face questions about the risks and possibilities intimate relationships bring: How can people be intimate without becoming suffocatingly close? How should couples build meaningful, loving, or supportive relationships when older models for behavior no longer feel feasible? What styles of intimacy most benefit society? What do you do, legally and socially, when you just can't take it anymore? Relating the intensely private stories from people experiencing different stages of divorce, this book provides a rich ethnography of Japan that also speaks more broadly to contemporary visions of love and marriage as neoliberal values are prompting wide-ranging transformations in bedrooms across the globe--

• | Author: Allison Alexy
• | Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• | Publication Date: June 08, 2020
• | Number of Pages: 248 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 022670095X
• | ISBN-13: 9780226700953