I caught a Japanese TV program on YouTube where Matsuko Deluxe, a famous gay celebrity, was talking about why more and more Japanese people are divorcing in this day and age unlike in the old days.
His reasoning is, in the past, when technology wasn’t that advanced, couples would bear with it and stick through with each other. In a time when there is no washing machine, rice cooker, vacuum cleaners, etc., men needed someone at home in order to lead a decent life. Imagine someone going home after work having to cook the rice using fire, sweep the floor with brooms, and wash their clothes on a washboard. It’s quite impossible to have a proper life that way.
Likewise, when women working wasn’t common, they were unable to lead a life without someone bringing home the bread.
Now, however, women are independent and working. They have no need for men. In the same light, with technology and convenience of today, men don’t need someone else around for them to lead a proper life. Convenience stores here are stocked full of provisions made for people living alone and no one really needs to cook anymore. All these conveniences make it easier for one to give up on a relationship.
In that note, he seems to be suggesting that a similar number of marriages that did not end in divorce are due to “no choice.” But it is difficult to deny that with the stuff I hear on TV, where one lawyer said she has counseled a woman who saved a lot of money on the side (some $200,000) in preparation for life after divorce, but when she learned that the court will make her split half of that amount with the husband, she decided to not get a divorce.
But in this light, it seems that with having a partner being less of a necessity, and more of a “bonus,” plus the fact that population in many nations are shrinking, perhaps the dinosaur robot I saw as a child at the Science Centre was right: Someday, humans could go extinct too.
Cool. Merry Christmas.
Merry Xmas to you too!