Japundit points to a new book arguing that Japan’s high divorce rates are not a new phenomena:

In DIVORCE IN JAPAN: Family, Gender and the State 1600-2000 (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2004, 226 pages), which was reviewed recently in The Japan Times, Harold Feuss claims that divorce rates in 19th-century Japan were actually higher than they are today.

Elevated divorce rates are nothing new to Japan; indeed, 19th-century rates have been exceeded only by those in the post-1970s United States. As recently as the late 19th century, there was little stigma attached to divorce and multiple marriages were common.