Arab News Japan

TOKYO: The Advisory Committee of Japan’s Ministry of Justice’s Legislative Council said it is proceeding to amend Article 772 of its Civil Code that prevents women from remarrying for 100 days after a divorce.

The amendment will abolish Article 772, following a government panel that took place this week. The abolishment of this law means that that women will no longer have to wait for a 100 days after a divorce to remarry, but only if they can prove that they are not pregnant within that time period.

The committee said that the present rule preventing women from remarrying a different person within 100 days of divorcing a former husband will be discontinued. Thus women may now marry and register their marriage immediately upon divorcing their former spouse except when pregnant.

The original rule, which dates back to about two centuries, was based on the idea that if a woman gave birth to a child fathered by a man other than their ex-husband right after divorce, they would tend to not register the birth of their child on the family register, in fear of the possibility that the legal father might end up being the ex-husband. Reports have shown that many children had been left unregistered as a result of this rule.

The revision is also designed to alter the period allocated for the presumption of the paternity of a child born within 300 days of a woman’s divorce to that of her former husband’s. At present, a child born within 300 days of a divorce is deemed as the child of the previous husband, while a child born 200 days after the mother’s marriage is  presumed to be the child of the “current” husband.

Japan will maintain the old three-hundred-day principle except in cases where the woman has remarried when the child is born, and in that case, the child’s father will be presumed to be her current husband. Since a woman may now marry without delay following divorce, paternity will be determined accordingly.  

Under the new law, mothers and children may be allowed to initiate paternity-denying legal procedure and challenge paternity claims, which are currently only permitted to be undertaken by fathers. The period for bringing such “non-paternity” actions shall be extended to 3 years in all cases.

The ministry considers that such a rule, which dictates a time period for when a woman may get remarried, was originally purposed to keep the lineage of such children definite and avoid confusion about who the father is.

This law dates back to the 19th-century, where a woman’s ex-husband is automatically registered as the father on a birth certificate of a child born within 300 days of their divorce.

In Japan, failure to be registered under the family registration system is problematic for Japanese citizens as it denies them of their nationality and poses difficulty on those seeking to engage in important legal or social activities.

The announcement to amend the divorce and remarriage laws have attracted considerable attention outside of Japan with people taking to social media platforms to comment on the reformation. The laws have been met with confusion and ambiguous information associated with what the 19th century law is and what the amended law will entail.

The below twitter post in Arabic, for example, indicates that Japan will be passing a law that prevents women from remarrying for 100 days after divorce, which is the opposite of what had been announced.

The incorrect news came with a lot of backlash and others rushing to correct it. 

صباح الخير ✋ https://t.co/YLFgZNGhBo pic.twitter.com/EyGfUn11lr

— اليابان بالعربي🇯🇵 (@nippon_ar) February 9, 2022

The Japanese embassy in Saudi Arabia also weighed in on the matter, quote tweeting the deleted post: “Clarification and correction of what is being circulated on social media platforms: 

توضيح وتصحيح عما يتم تداوله على منصات التواصل الاجتماعي:
ما حدث هو أن المجلس الاستشاري لوزير العدل الياباني قدم مقترح تعديل القانون المدني ذلك في يوم ١ فبراير والذي تضمن إلغاء منع المطلقات من الزواج مجددًا قبل انقضاء ١٠٠ يوم على طلاقهن على عكس ما تم تداوله تمامًا. https://t.co/d4a96sJznK

— Embassy of Japan in KSA (@JapanEmbassyKSA) February 6, 2022

What happened is that the Consultative Council of the Japanese Minister of Justice submitted a proposal to amend the Civil Code on February 1, which included the abolition of the prohibition of divorced women from remarrying before the expiry of 100 days after their divorce, contrary to what was circulated completely.”  

One Arab Twitter user wondered about the history of the law, tweeting: “It registers that the Japanese have this law and are abolishing it. However, as for their giving up on it, it must be a matter of their own social customs. But the question is what called them to enact a hundred-day ban?” 

هي تسجل لليابانيين ان يكون لديهم هذا القانون والحظر
اما تخليهم عنه فهذا شأن خاص بهم وبعاداتهم الاجتماعية
لكن السؤال
ماالذي دعاهم لسن قانون المئة يوم حظر ؟

— صالح الحناكي (@SA_ALHENAKI) February 8, 2022