For Richer Or Poorer? -- What Japanese Women Really think About Money and Marriage

For Richer Or Poorer? — What Japanese Women Really think About Money and Marriage

Jan 28, 2013 by Kay

Tiffany Wedding Ring

It’s an age-old question: Which is more important, love or money? There’s no right answer, and your feelings on the matter could very well change over the years. But really, you don’t want your life to be completely devoid of either, do you? Well, maybe if you’re exceedingly lucky, you have plenty of both and won’t ever have to think about choosing between the two (but I have the feeling that many of us aren’t that lucky). Sure, the Beatles can sing “All You Need Is Love” all they like and we can join along at the top of our voices, but can you really make a relationship, or even more complicated, a marriage work without money?

To find out how important Japanese women think money is in a marriage, Daiwa Next Bank and Starts Publishing Corporation recently conducted a survey through the popular women’s information site OZmall operated by Starts Publishing.

According to reports on the survey, 532 women who use the OZmall site were asked three questions involving marriage and money.

1.Marriage Without Money?
The first question in the survey asked women, “Would you be willing to marry without money?” Now, if we’re making polite conversation and want to put on a good girl’s face, we may be tempted to say that money doesn’t matter and love is the most important thing in a relationship. But here’s what the survey results actually showed:

Overall, a very large 72% of the women polled answered that they wouldn’t want to marry without money. A break-down of the results by age group was also available: Women in their twenties were most inclined to consider money a necessity, with 78% answering that marriage without money was a no-go; in the other age groups, 68% of women in their thirties and 67% of women in their forties answered “No” to the question. To be honest, this writer found the difference between the age groups here quite surprising, since I would have thought that young people would be more likely adhere to the old “love can conquer all” adage.

Some of the reasons that women gave for answering “No” to this question included: “Marriage involves reality and daily life, not just ideals”, “You don’t want to be scraping by; you want to have some room to breathe in your life, both financially and mentally” and “If you have children, you don’t want them experiencing financial hardship.” On the other hand, women who answered “Yes” gave reasons such as: “The wedding doesn’t have to be a fancy, expensive affair”, “If both of us work, we should be able to get by” and “You can start saving after you get married.” Hmm, to me, it seems people who answered “Yes” are quite optimistic about their finances. Practically speaking, starting a new life and home without money, even if it’s with the person you love, can’t be easy.

2. Ideal Partner’s Income?
The second question in the poll asked, “Ideally, how much income would you like your partner to earn?” This can understandably be a sensitive topic, since people probably don’t want to sound like greedy money mongers who judge their potential partner based on their income. Here’s what the women said:

The largest number of women answered that they would like their partner to earn 6 million yen ($67,000) and up. Although this figure doesn’t sound too unreasonable considering the cost of living and raising children in Japan, this survey result could be slightly problematic news for men looking to get married, since according to Japan’s National Tax Agency’s survey in 2010, the average income of Japanese men in their early thirties was 4.32 million yen ($48,000) and 5.05 million yen ($57,000) for men in their late thirties, revealing a gap between expectations and reality. But then, we all know that reality can be harsh, even when it involves a union of love, don’t we? Especially in a time when we still can’t be too optimistic about the economy in Japan, I guess we can’t really blame women for wanting a certain amount of security in marriage, at least in terms of income.

3. Saving up for marriage?
The third question the women were asked was, “Are you saving money for future wedding/marriage costs?” As the results below indicate, a little under half of the women said yes, they were saving money for marriage.

According to the poll, women who answered “Yes” to this question had saved an average of 2-5 million yen ($22,000 – $56,000), and there was even someone who had saved an amazing 20 million yen ($220,000) for her wedding, an impressive amount any way you look at it!

Oh, and if any of you guys out there want to know about how far girls are willing to go for their dream wedding, the movie Bride Wars should give you a good idea.

So, there you have it: the truth about money and marriage from 532 Japanese women. Personally, I have only respect for women who have the willpower and planning skills to save up a wedding fund, but I do tend to think that if you have serious worries about finances or your partner’s income, getting married and starting a family may not be the best idea. That said, there are of course many examples of happily married couples who make it through financial difficulties, so where does that leave us? Well, folks, sorry I don’t have an answer; I’m afraid that all any of us can do is hope that we don’t ever have to make a serious choice between love and money.

Would you be able to choose one over the other?

Source: RBBToday (Japanese)

▼If you want to save on your wedding dress, how about a dress made of tissue paper like the one below? Oh, but wait, this is a Vera Wang tissue dress, so it probably won’t save you any money at all…