A half step ahead: marriage discourses in Japanese women's magazines

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 1970s, Japanese marry less and later in life. Even though many studies suggest that these changes are in the majority initiated by women, female-oriented media has remained understudied. Yet women's magazines as part of mass media are an important element of society, they function both as mirror and motor of society, and are an agent of socialization. Therefore I present here a longitudinal analysis of women's magazines, targeting different age groups. Using a qualitative and quantitative content analysis, particular focus lies on the shifting discourses on motivations for marriage, and what constitutes marital happiness and discord. The data suggests that the discourses are--for some generation of readers--"ahead of their times" and point to a greater heterogeneity of marital experiences than so far had been assumed. These can be seen as a contributing factor to the large-scale transformations of family and family lives Japan underwent in the last few decades.