We Should All Graduate From Marriage

We should try graduating from marriage in Nigeria. Most of the time in marriages, women forego their dreams to raise their kids and take care of their husbands. It is no gain saying that women sacrifice so much in marriage, thereby resulting to most women living unfulfilled lives. Japan has practice that ensures that both couples in marriage lives their dreams. It is called "sotsukon".

Sotsukon is for couples still in love, who decide to "live apart together" in their sunset years to achieve their separate dreams.

When Yuriko Nishi's three grown-up sons left home, she asked her husband of 36 years an unusual question: Was there any dream married life had prevented him from fulfilling?


"We started wondering what path should we be walking on," says Nishi, 66. "We told our children it was a good chance to evolve our family."

Like many others in Japan, the couple decided to graduate from marriage -- or "sotsukon."

This is not divorce.

In a nation with an aging population, the idea has taken root.

Yoshihide Ito, 63, after working for decades as a cameraman in Tokyo, told his wife he wanted to escape city life and return to his home prefecture of Mie, in southern Japan, to become a rice farmer.

Yuriko Nishi and her husband Yoshihide Ito with their children before sotsukon.

Nishi wished to continue her career as a fashion stylist in the capital.

"He visits me once a month. I visit him for a week at a time, too," Nishi says.

Distance, she explains, helps the couple to miss and appreciate each other; they now plan date nights for the time they spend together.

"Our marriage is in good shape. We share two totally different lifestyles."

The term "sotsukon" was coined in 2004 by Japanese author Yumiko Sugiyama in her book "Sotsukon no Susume" -- "Recommending the Graduation from Marriage."

The word is a commingle of "sotsugo" (graduation) and "kekkon" (marriage).

"In Japan, traditionally the man is the head of the household, and the wife lives under his financial support as a domestic worker," says Sugiyama.

"I wondered what if each member of the married couple could obtain more freedom to do what they want without getting divorced?"

The imagination of the Japanese public was captured -- particularly that of the housewife -- at a point when changing demographics in the nation were reshaping society.

Culled from CNN