3 ms·

One of my friends was fearing of being forced to leave his partner behind in Japan and having to go back to his home country when he had trouble securing a new

One of my friends was fearing of being forced to leave his partner behind in Japan and having to go back to his home country when he had trouble securing a new job, even if his partner’s salary could more than cover for his expenses. To get permanent residence he needs to live 10 years in Japan while working and paying taxes. For some people the difference in rights might feel small but there are certain edge cases when it makes a big difference. If my friend's partner was not the same sex as his, then he would be eligible to a spouse visa regardless of job status and could get permanent residence in as low as 3 years.

lazzlazzlazz 3y ago
Note that the issues you're talking about are, in substance, really about immigration and the legalisms therein. They're not about marriage in itself. The fact that marriage comes with other immigration and residency privileges means that it enters the conversation often when immigration is the topic. I'm not sure that it makes sense to alter marriage to solve immigration issues.
- Renaud 3y ago
  How about rights of care when your partner of 20 years can’t make medical decisions because your relationship is not recognised? Or i inheritance rights when you pass away and you lifelong partner gets little or nothing because your relationship doesn’t mean anything to the state? What about parenting rights? And what about simply people who decide to commit to a relationship enjoy the same rights, privileges and duties as anyone else instead of making them second rate citizens unworthy of the protection and recognition of the state?
  - mysterydip 3y ago
    Can't you sign power of attorney papers, explicitly list people in a will, and name guardians for children? It sounds like it's just not implicit or automatic (which is obviously desirable). Is that correct or am I off base?
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Can't you sign power of attorney papers, explicitly list people in a will, and name guardians for children? It sounds like it's just not implicit or automatic. Is that correct or am I off base? There are some things that aren't replicable easily, some things that are more difficult to deal with because institutions are more used to dealing with marriage, there are recognition issues and anticipation issues because both the things covered and the legal forms necessary to acheive them differ by jurisdiction, and may not have the degree of mutual recognition marriage does, and there are innmost jurisdictions a very large number of things that this applies to so it complex, potentially costly, and leave lots of room for error to get everything yoj can do by contract. And there are things you still can't duplicate at all because they are, e.g., benefits conditioned directly on marriage by the state or a third party, so contract between the parties outside of marriage has no effect on them.
    - spondylosaurus 3y ago
      Technically yes, but even those workarounds are hard-won rights and not always honored: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Guardianship_of_Kowalski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Guardianship_of_Kowalski
    - klyrs 3y ago
      > Is that correct or am I off base? Very off base. Requiring gay couples to jump through hurdles to access the rights and privileges afforded to straight couples is not equality.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    ^ Yep, it's not a coincidence that the push for same-sex marriage in the US came right after the height of the AIDS crisis. People were routinely denied the right to stay with (or even visit) their partners in the hospital, couldn't extend health insurance coverage to those partners to pay for rising treatment costs, and had little control over those partners' estates after they died. Hence John Boskovich's "Feel It Motherfuckers": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Fan_(Feel_It_Motherfuckers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Fan_(Feel_It_Motherfu...
- dqv 3y ago
  The issue they're talking about here is fairness, with immigration as a concrete example. Simple and clean. How you think that fairness should be administered is up to you. If you want to advocate for removing immigration rules for naturalizing foreign spouses in Japan, just say that. Regardless of immigration, marriage should be "altered" to give everyone the same rights. If that means getting rid of the legal concept of marriage entirely, so be it. I could be wrong, but I'm sensing some false advocacy here. It seems like you're using immigration as a red herring - don't "alter" marriage, alter immigration laws instead! How about both?
- jwrallie 3y ago
  Yeah, countries could create extra mechanism to try to minimize discrimination in immigration, taxes, decisions in hospitals, renting/buying a place to live, inheritance, and many other issues that could not come to mind. Or you could solve it by allowing same sex marriage. That sounds so much easier. This is strictly my personal opinion, but I would be perfectly fine with renaming marriage to civil union as a whole in terms of law and giving the same rights to all couples independent of sex, leaving the term marriage for other uses outside of law. However I understand the reasons why people would want to have same sex marriage named as so, I would also be perfectly fine with that.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  If we really stuck to the definition, "marriage" as a legal status would make no sense and should have no impact on how the gov. is treating you (fundamentally, why should the gov. care about who your heart belongs to?) So discussions are bound to be about the perks that have nothing to do with marriage per se, but are bundled with the marriage status, and are harder or impossible to get outside of it. Opening marriage to more people is a more reasonable proposition than rewriting every single marriage perk to be more open to everyone.
lmm 3y ago
> If my friend's partner was not the same sex as his, then he would be eligible to a spouse visa regardless of job status and could get permanent residence in as low as 3 years. Bear in mind that the Japanese government's official rationale for allowing spouses to work freely is to allow foreigners in that position to support Japanese dependent family members. The fact that it applies to spouses of working adults without children is more of a legal accident than deliberate policy (the rules were set at a time when it was rare for women to have careers).
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Yes. It's such a weird quirk, where the japanese denomination is for having a "dependent(配偶者) of Japanese national" while the english wording is just "spouse". I think they're just stuck with the old japanese name and won't bother renaming it to something closer to reality.
- belorn 3y ago
  Seems like they could move this law to parental benefits with very little change in intent and effect. It would not change for the friend in the parent comment, but it would separate the law from the cultural concept of marriage. It would also eliminate the concept of sham marriage when used as a tool for immigration (I have no idea if that is common or not).
  - lmm 3y ago
    > Seems like they could move this law to parental benefits with very little change in intent and effect. That wouldn't allow a foreign husband to work to support a Japanese wife, which is an important function of the current rules. Gender discrimination may be nominally illegal in Japan, but it's still quite hard for a woman, especially a married woman, to have a full career and get promoted etc..
    - belorn 3y ago
      If we assume that the Japanese government's official view married women in japan without children as a dependent family members, then it is possible that immigration of foreign husband of those are an intended feature. It might also be that husband supporting such dependent family member is assumed to fall within the skilled labor category of immigrants.

lazzlazzlazz 3y ago

Note that the issues you're talking about are, in substance, really about immigration and the legalisms therein. They're not about marriage in itself. The fact that marriage comes with other immigration and residency privileges means that it enters the conversation often when immigration is the topic. I'm not sure that it makes sense to alter marriage to solve immigration issues.

Renaud 3y ago
How about rights of care when your partner of 20 years can’t make medical decisions because your relationship is not recognised? Or i inheritance rights when you pass away and you lifelong partner gets little or nothing because your relationship doesn’t mean anything to the state? What about parenting rights? And what about simply people who decide to commit to a relationship enjoy the same rights, privileges and duties as anyone else instead of making them second rate citizens unworthy of the protection and recognition of the state?
- mysterydip 3y ago
  Can't you sign power of attorney papers, explicitly list people in a will, and name guardians for children? It sounds like it's just not implicit or automatic (which is obviously desirable). Is that correct or am I off base?
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Can't you sign power of attorney papers, explicitly list people in a will, and name guardians for children? It sounds like it's just not implicit or automatic. Is that correct or am I off base? There are some things that aren't replicable easily, some things that are more difficult to deal with because institutions are more used to dealing with marriage, there are recognition issues and anticipation issues because both the things covered and the legal forms necessary to acheive them differ by jurisdiction, and may not have the degree of mutual recognition marriage does, and there are innmost jurisdictions a very large number of things that this applies to so it complex, potentially costly, and leave lots of room for error to get everything yoj can do by contract. And there are things you still can't duplicate at all because they are, e.g., benefits conditioned directly on marriage by the state or a third party, so contract between the parties outside of marriage has no effect on them.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Technically yes, but even those workarounds are hard-won rights and not always honored: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Guardianship_of_Kowalski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Guardianship_of_Kowalski
  - klyrs 3y ago
    > Is that correct or am I off base? Very off base. Requiring gay couples to jump through hurdles to access the rights and privileges afforded to straight couples is not equality.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  ^ Yep, it's not a coincidence that the push for same-sex marriage in the US came right after the height of the AIDS crisis. People were routinely denied the right to stay with (or even visit) their partners in the hospital, couldn't extend health insurance coverage to those partners to pay for rising treatment costs, and had little control over those partners' estates after they died. Hence John Boskovich's "Feel It Motherfuckers": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Fan_(Feel_It_Motherfuckers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Fan_(Feel_It_Motherfu...
dqv 3y ago
The issue they're talking about here is fairness, with immigration as a concrete example. Simple and clean. How you think that fairness should be administered is up to you. If you want to advocate for removing immigration rules for naturalizing foreign spouses in Japan, just say that. Regardless of immigration, marriage should be "altered" to give everyone the same rights. If that means getting rid of the legal concept of marriage entirely, so be it. I could be wrong, but I'm sensing some false advocacy here. It seems like you're using immigration as a red herring - don't "alter" marriage, alter immigration laws instead! How about both?
jwrallie 3y ago
Yeah, countries could create extra mechanism to try to minimize discrimination in immigration, taxes, decisions in hospitals, renting/buying a place to live, inheritance, and many other issues that could not come to mind. Or you could solve it by allowing same sex marriage. That sounds so much easier. This is strictly my personal opinion, but I would be perfectly fine with renaming marriage to civil union as a whole in terms of law and giving the same rights to all couples independent of sex, leaving the term marriage for other uses outside of law. However I understand the reasons why people would want to have same sex marriage named as so, I would also be perfectly fine with that.
makeitdouble 3y ago
If we really stuck to the definition, "marriage" as a legal status would make no sense and should have no impact on how the gov. is treating you (fundamentally, why should the gov. care about who your heart belongs to?) So discussions are bound to be about the perks that have nothing to do with marriage per se, but are bundled with the marriage status, and are harder or impossible to get outside of it. Opening marriage to more people is a more reasonable proposition than rewriting every single marriage perk to be more open to everyone.

lmm 3y ago

> If my friend's partner was not the same sex as his, then he would be eligible to a spouse visa regardless of job status and could get permanent residence in as low as 3 years. Bear in mind that the Japanese government's official rationale for allowing spouses to work freely is to allow foreigners in that position to support Japanese dependent family members. The fact that it applies to spouses of working adults without children is more of a legal accident than deliberate policy (the rules were set at a time when it was rare for women to have careers).

makeitdouble 3y ago
Yes. It's such a weird quirk, where the japanese denomination is for having a "dependent(配偶者) of Japanese national" while the english wording is just "spouse". I think they're just stuck with the old japanese name and won't bother renaming it to something closer to reality.
belorn 3y ago
Seems like they could move this law to parental benefits with very little change in intent and effect. It would not change for the friend in the parent comment, but it would separate the law from the cultural concept of marriage. It would also eliminate the concept of sham marriage when used as a tool for immigration (I have no idea if that is common or not).
- lmm 3y ago
  > Seems like they could move this law to parental benefits with very little change in intent and effect. That wouldn't allow a foreign husband to work to support a Japanese wife, which is an important function of the current rules. Gender discrimination may be nominally illegal in Japan, but it's still quite hard for a woman, especially a married woman, to have a full career and get promoted etc..
  - belorn 3y ago
    If we assume that the Japanese government's official view married women in japan without children as a dependent family members, then it is possible that immigration of foreign husband of those are an intended feature. It might also be that husband supporting such dependent family member is assumed to fall within the skilled labor category of immigrants.