and Ukraine, which makes Russian-speaking women and Japanese men search for foreign partners.
Figure 3-1 Cross-National Marriage Migration of Russian-speaking Women in Japan
The gender ideology in Russia and Ukraine (which prescribes the role of bread-winner of the family to man), and in the principle of patrilocality in
LEGALIZ ATION
WORK PERMISS ION
PATRILOC ALITY
MALE BREADWI NNER
CROSS-NATION AL MARRIAGE MIGRATION
SHORTAGE OF BRIDES IN JAPAN
ECONOMIC DIFFERENCES SHORTAGE OF GROOMS IN
RUSSIA/UKRAINE
IRRATIONAL MOTIVES
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Japan (which makes elder sons bound to their place and not eager to move) form the “natural” direction of the marital immigrant flow from Russia and Ukraine to Japan. The economic disparities of the two countries make this ideologically determined decision also economically beneficial. Finally, it is important to stress that cross-national marriage migration is not always a rational decision. There is always room for irrational personal factors: love,
“seduction of exotic” (Kohn, 1998, p. 67), and the realization of one’s destiny.
Constable (2005) concludes that “marriage mobility commonly involves the movement of brides from more remote and less developed locations to increasingly developed and less isolated ones” (Constable, 2005: 4) and often involves men who search for women of more traditional gender behavior. In other words, marital migration is rooted in economics and gender ideology.
Marital migration is more likely to occur in cases when: 1) the principles of patrilocality and patriarchy (male breadwinners) are commonly recognized in both the country of settlement and the country of origin of the marital migrant; 2) when the husband’s county is more developed economically, or 3) when the husband has better chances to become the breadwinner for the family. Correspondingly, marriage becomes a suitable construct for smooth and approved social transition for women from the traditionally gender-oriented societies. Moreover, highly approved in most states, legalized marriage concedes the right of permanent residence in the country of settlement.
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CHAPTER 4:
Investigating Dimensions of Cross-National Marriage:
A Case of Russian-speaking Wives in Japan
WHY CROSS-NATIONAL MARRIAGE SHOULD BE DISTINGUISHED FROM CROSS-CULTURAL MARRIAGE?
In previous chapters I investigated the phenomenon of cross-national marriage applying macro-level (the meaning of cross-national marriage in the immigration policies of Japan), meso-level (the meaning of cross-national marriage in the shaping of immigrant communities), and micro-level (the meaning of cross-national marriage in the life strategies of individual immigrants) perspectives. In this chapter I argue for application of multi-level approach for the adequate understanding of the phenomenon of cross-national marriage.
As I already mentioned in Introduction, most previous research has investigated cross-national marriage from the micro-level perspective, stressing the cultural aspects of such marriages. It resulted in theoretical confusion of cross-national marriage with interfaith, interracial, and interethnic marriages between members of different communities in the same country. I unite them under the term “cross-cultural marriage”.
In this chapter I further argue for distinguishing cross-national marriage from cross-cultural marriage, which is not related to immigration.
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In this section, I presented the results of a study conducted in a community of Russian-speaking women married to Japanese men living in Japan. The objective of this chapter is to reveal important dimensions of cross-national marriage. The findings from this chapter were published as a part of
“Immigration and Settlement: Challenges, Experiences, and Opportunities”
(Ed. Bauder, 2012, Chapter 8, pp. 131-145).
METHOD
Qualitative methods were used to reveal previously untheorized dimensions of cross-national marriage. Precise attention was given to how migrant wives evaluate their experiences of cross-national marriage. In the first year, the study was focussed around the capital district, Tokyo. In the second year, I concentrated on extensive fieldwork at several distant communities on the island of Kyushu in the southwest region of Japan. I attended women’s and children’s birthday parties, holiday parties and get-togethers; I also tried to provide some support in the women’s everyday lives such as baby-sitting, translating important documentation, interpreting consultations on divorce processes, etc. Furthermore, I conducted extensive participant observation of the Russian-Speaking Women Internet Community in Japan over the two year study period.
In addition, I interviewed 20 women (18 Russian and two Ukrainian).
The participants were referred through personal contacts and the Internet community; some I met during fieldwork activities. I intentionally tried to
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access both women who live close and far from the capital and in large cities and small towns, anticipating that the different contexts provide different perspectives.
In general, the participants were young (average age of 30), in marriages lasting from 1 to 21 years (with an average of 4.5 years), and had relatively high levels of educational level (ten women with undergraduate degree, four with graduate degrees). Most women are either with no children or very young children; two women had children from a previous marriage. Typical for Russian-Japanese marriages, many women met their husbands to-be in Japanese nightclubs where they initially worked as dancers. A few couples in my sample got acquainted during the husband’s or wife’s work or study abroad, through the Internet, or through marital matching agencies. Except for Marina’s case who was introduced to her husband through the marital matching agency, the sample does not include any cases of arranged marriages. Most women were part-time workers or professional home-makers at the time of the study. It is typical in Japan with its traditional gender roles that women take care of the family and workas part-time (usually in the service sector) when the husband’s income becomes insufficient to meet the family’s needs. In addition, the unique and complex
Case Nationality Age Age Difference
Husband Occupation Encounter Region Place of Residence Education
Table 4-1. Sample characteristics.
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Case Nationality Age Age Difference
Husband Occupation Encounter Region Place of Residence Education Wife Work Family structure
1 Sasha Russia 25 17 company manager Internet Tokyo mega polis Graduate part-time spouses 2 Galina Russia 30 20 labourer night-club Tokyo mega polis Professional school homemaker spouses
3 Nadia Russia 25 13 night-club staff night-club Kyushu city Undergraduate part-time spouses 4 Marina Russia 29 21 company staff, farming agency Kyushu town Undergraduate x2 homemaker extended 5 Olga Russia 47 7 company staff business trip Tokyo mega polis Undergraduate full-time spouses
6 Lena Russia 23 6 translator Internet Tokyo town Undergraduate part-time extended
7 Svetlana Russia 28 9 teacher study Tokyo mega polis Graduate full-time extended 8 Elizabeth Russia 35 9 company staff business trip Tokyo/Russia mega polis Undergraduate, unfinished part-time 2 children
9 Vasilisa Ukraine 32 8 self-employed night-club Kyushu city Graduate self-employed spouses, 1 child
10 Margarita Russia 25 16 company manager night-club Kyushu city Undergraduate homemaker spouses 11 Valentina Russia 26 2 company staff study Tokyo mega polis Undergraduate home-maker spouses
12 Albina Russia 34 17 self-employed night-club Kyushu city Undergraduate part-time spouses, 2 childr
13 Maria Russia 33 17 self-employed night-club Kyushu village Undergraduate homemaker extended 14 Larisa Ukraine 35 1 labourer night-club Kyushu town Professional school part-time spouses, 1 child
15 Tamara Russia 27 7 family business night-club Kyushu city Professional school home-maker spouses, 1 child 16 Sabrina Russia 32 -2 Russian company branch staff study Tokyo mega polis Undergraduate part-time spouses 17 Sofia Russia 27 1 company staff study Tokyo mega polis Graduate home-maker spouses 18 Kseniya Russia 33 -4 company manager night-club Tokyo mega polis Undergraduate, unfinished home-maker spouses, 1 child 19 Polina Russia 25 6 company staff night-club, Russia Tokyo mega polis Undergraduate, unfinished home-maker spouses, 1 child 20 Selena Russia 31 -4 company staff study Tokyo mega polis Undergraduate home-maker spouses
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Japanese script makes it difficult for foreigners to obtain jobs that match their aspirations. All interviewed participants were given a brief explanation before asked to participate in an interview. Interviews were conducted between May 2008 and June 2010. All interviews were conducted in Russian, and lasted from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. An open-ended questionnaire was developed on the basis of the literature (e.g. Lewis and Spanier, 1979). To investigate the degree of importance of specific issues all participants were asked about their marital satisfaction. The initial questionnaire was revised to include new and previously untheorized issues mentioned by the participants or found during the fieldwork. After the interview, all women were asked to complete a fact sheet on demographics and a small questionnaire. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using an open coding technique. Inductive method was used to define the categories, while continual reference to the previous research (deductive method) helped to investigate new themes for interviews and interpret the data. Not all categories were mentioned in every interview;
some were mentioned frequently and others seldom; however all of them were given equal value in the analysis. In the sections below, for confidentiality purposes, participant’s names were changed.
FINDINGS
Three dimensions of cross-national marriages were mentioned by
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participants in the study: 1) relations with the spouse, 2) relations with local community, and 3) relations with host society. Figure 8.1 summarizes the three dimensions of cross-national marriage.
Relations with the Spouse
The first dimension focuses on the micro-context of daily relations.
This dimension includes aspects of love and sexual relations, emotional gratification, effective communication, and gender role consensus. Love and Sexual Relations
According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, love (belonging) and sexual relations (physical needs) are basic needs of human beings. In most societies they are traditionally prescribed to be satisfied in the marriage union. Most of the respondents reported “love” as their main reason for marriage and an important aspect of the evaluation of their marriage. Conversely, three women (Nadia, Larisa, Polina) who reported strong dissatisfaction with the sexual relations with their husbands also mentioned that they had been considering divorce. Two respondents, who were contacted during the filed-study but refused the formal interview, admitted that they married their husbands to have an opportunity to live in Japan. They mentioned to have no “spousal relations” with their husbands.
At the same time, they noted that such relations were highly desirable for a
“true” marriage. They also expressed their hope for a second marriage that would be a “true” one.
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Figure 4-1 Dimensions of Cross-National Marriage
Relations with
Relations with Community
Relations with Host Society
Cross- National Marriage Love and Sexual
Relations Emotional Gratification
Security Effective Communication
Socio-Economic Status Legal Status Gender Roles
Extended Family Community Embededdness
Values of Host Society Society Openness
Community Support
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Expressions of love may differ between countries and cultures. For Russian and Ukrainian women expressions of love mean, first of all, the affirmation of their femininity and beauty, whereas for Japanese wives it may also mean the husband’s provision of economic stability of the family.
In a non-Japanese context, Mai Yamani (1998) finds in her study of cross-national marriage between Saudi Arabia women and Pakistani men that in the world of Islam marriage for love is constructed as opposite of arranged marriage; love is a shameful concept that “implies putting one’s own individual interests above those of the well-being of the extended family” (Yamani, 1998, p. 163). Correspondingly, the importance of this factor may differ for different partners in the cross-national marriage.
Emotional Gratification
The aspect of emotional gratification involves support, trust, and mutual understanding. As Vasilisa, a 32-year old wife from Kyushu in her ninth year of marriage, explained: “The problems in cross-national marriages may be the same (as like-national ones), but we feel them more acutely.Migrant spouse in cross-national marriage cannot fully enjoy his or her previous social network, and all social ties are often narrowed to spousal relations. Therefore, it becomes crucially important how their emotional needs are met in spouse relations. Galina and Nadia also used the argument that their husband was” the only intimate person they had here [in Japan].” The part of Nadia’s interview below shows how she relates her migration and the importance of emotional gratification in spousal
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the importance of emotional gratification in spousal relations.
Interviewer: Do you remember the situations, when you felt support of your spouse? (Pause) Or maybe lack of support?
Nadia: Yes, we had it at the beginning. Saying, I started crying, but he didn’t try to set me at rest. That time, to tell the truth, yes. I was shocked. This is my husband! I had nobody here, who would support me!
That hurt me very much. To tell the truth, we had such an episode. But then I thought: “Maybe this not the reason to… quarrel. I will try to explain it, and if he does not understand… maybe we have no future.
Because it is very important! The support of your intimate people is very important! But I tried to explain: “You know, I can’t live without it!
Moreover, I am alone here. I am Russian. If you fail to support me… I will, probably… How can I trust you then. This is the most important.”
Because it hurts a lot, when you did it all for him, I mean, when you moved to a foreign country and changed everything, but he is not willing to support or understand you.”
Again, the meaning of the concepts of support, trust and mutual understanding may vary in different societies. For example, “trust” can refer to two persons having no secrets (Russia, Ukraine) or to two persons not asking questions (Japan). When referring to “lack of support”, Russian and Ukrainian women meant that they needed verbal support, whereas their Japanese husbands provided support in action. Nevertheless emotional
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gratification as it is understood by the study participants is an important aspect of cross-national marriage.
Effective Communication
Communication should be understood in a broad sense as the process of encoding and decoding different cultural patterns. Communication problems were reported to arise from an incomplete understanding of the partner’s language and cultural background. Such problems were mentioned by five of the 20 women in the sample (Galina, Nadia, Margarita, Maria, Polina). Four of them have been married for a short period, from one month to two years. Only Maria was in the fifth year of her marriage and the kind of problems she mentioned were different. All women explained that they cannot communicate their ideas as effectively as they wished. Maria further explained that her husband used to misinterpret her words every time he got drunk. None of the five women took professional training in Japanese before marriage and all had only lived for a relatively short period in Japan.
Selena’s words, however, exemplify the idea that communication problems can be overcome and a better understanding of partner’s motivation and local settings can be achieved with time:
Interviewer: When you have some conflicts, what is the most frequent reason for them? And how often do you quarrel?
Selena: We did have quarrels at the beginning. Because of misunderstandings, right? But then we knew each other better. We
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understood that it was not just my love for quarrels. We realized that I just didn’t understand something. Or he didn’t understand something.
But it lessened gradually. We make fun of it now. I don’t know ... I think it is not so related to different cultures. You just have to get used to each other, to know each other better. I think it would be the same if I had been married to the Russian. You have to understand each other, to know each other better first.
Gender Roles
As I mentioned in Chapter 3, there are three main gender models for women in post-soviet Russia and Ukraine: 1) working mother; 2) professional home-maker; and 3) sexualized femininity. The gender model “‘working mother” means that women combine work and home based on their preference or economic need. The model “professional home-maker”
regenerates the traditional labour division where the husband is the only breadwinner of the family. While this model resonates in religious discourse, where maternity and care are considered the natural attributes of femininity, it lacks legitimacy among the followers of Russia’s long tradition of dual-earner families. The third model “sexualized femininity” relates life style with sexual attractiveness (Zdravomyslova and Temkina, 2007, pp.
187−200). Although these ideal types can be very seldom observed in actuality, they serve as a tool to analyse gender roles of the women in the sample.
In contemporary Japan, with its history of rapid economic growth,
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when men were mobilised to work long hours, earned sufficient salaries to provide for the entire family, and women took care of the family, professional home-maker has been an attractive role for women. According to the report of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, 41.3 % of women in 2000-2004 left paid jobs after giving birth to first child and 25.2% of women were not employed before their first pregnancy. However, the economic recession of the past years put pressure on many families and forced many women to take part-time job. There is also a distinct minority of career-oriented women, who suffer however from low-status positions and lower earning potential, poor support systems for working mothers and lacking pregnancy and maternity support (Refsing, 1998, 199). In addition, expectations of very long working hours prevent many women from becoming the sole-provider of the family, or combining working with motherhood. As a result, most women leave their full-time jobs when they get married and play the role of a “good wife and wise mother” Furthermore, sexual attractiveness is not valued as a woman’s primary quality in Japanese society. Instead, as Refsing (1998) expresses, women “are encouraged to strive for the ideals of mildness (yasashisa), stoicism (gaman), consideration of others (omoiyari) and other traditional female virtues” (Refsing, 1998, p. 199).
Ten of the 20 women in my sample were “professional home-makers”;
seven women were working mothers or working wives (as some of them had no children); only three women were “career-oriented professionals”. Seven women reported that their gender identities were in conflict with their actual gender roles in the family. Galina and Nadia, who were professional
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home-makers, were encouraged to play the role of “good wife and wise mother.” They reported that, in fact, they desired to be “sexually attractive woman for her husband”. Vasilisa, Margarita, and Polina, who were professional home-makers, spoke about their identity crises as professionals.
Professional home-maker Tamara expressed her desire to work part-time, but she did not receive the necessary permission from her in-laws. Finally, working mother Albina was dreaming to stay at home and to become a professional home-maker, but could not quit her job as her husband refused to be the sole provider for the family.
These conflicts between the women’s gender identities and the gender roles they actually perform are not specific to cross-national marriages.
Rather, modern Russian and Japanese societies present a diversity of gender models that inevitably leads to identity conflicts. However in the case of cross-national marriages these conflicts are caused not only by personal preferences and economic need but also by structural limitations imposed by migration.
Relations with Local Community
The second dimension includes the aspects of extended family, community embeddedness, community openness and community support.
Relations with Extended Family
In many cases, when a migrant wife moves to the new country alone, without relatives, she finds herself as the only foreigner in the family. The
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situation when a foreign spouse enters a large family and lives with in-laws puts additional strain on spousal relations. It is more difficult to negotiate family relations when the wife is in an unequal position of “one versus many.” Four women in the sample lived with their in-laws, one woman lived right the next door to her husband’s family, two women lived separately but the husband’s family had strong ties with them. All of these women mentioned the great authority and influence of their husband’s family over their private life. The lack of private space and time (Marina), the double burden of household chores (Albina and Tamara), the constant interference and lecturing on how they should rear children and keep the household (Lena, Polina) and dependence in decision-making processes (like Tamara who was supposed to get the in-laws’ permission to acquire paid part-time employment) were mentioned as the reason for conflicts and dissatisfaction.
The very situation of migration put the wives in positions in which they could not use the ties with their own family as a power resource in negotiating everyday practices and/or decision-making. Most social and cultural practices common among their families in Russia and Ukraine were discredited as useless in the new country with its different climate and economic, political and social system. Conversely, practices enacted by the husbands’ families were presented as useful and necessary. Those wives who lived in nuclear rather than extended families enjoyed more egalitarian negotiations of everyday practices with their husbands. For example, Albina addressed the issue of baby’s romper suit. Although winter in Japan is milder than Russian, Albina considered it rather cold for a baby and did not
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approve Japanese way of clothing babies in romper suits that leave heels bare. She asked her friend to send romper suits from Russia, but her mother and sisters in law cut that part of the suit to open the heels, as they considered that those romper suits were suitable only for sever Russian winter.
Community Embeddedness
Community embeddedness was also mentioned as an important aspect of cross-national marriage. Although there were wives who had Japanese friends and those who had only Russian-speaking friends, both groups reported that the presence of acquaintances was very important for their psychological well-being. On the one hand, acquaintances fulfil the human need to belong to any group, including a professional community, a group based on leisure activities, a parents committee at school, or an ethnic community. On the other hand, migrant wives who move to a new place often lose the ties to their established communities at the place of origin and have to create new ties with the community where they now live. Not belonging to any group for an extended period can result in the feeling of exclusion from social life. It reminds me of the case of Vasilisa, who suffered such exclusion in the first years of her marriage:
“You have to start everything again. From zero point. I mean, you go outside, you are walking down the street-you are 20 years old- and you meet NOBODY. That scared me. That scared me so much. Because I was very
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sociable person, I had a lot of friends, acquaintances [in Ukraine]. But here, you walk, and walk, and walk, and you see nobody. I mean, of cause, you meet people outside, but no familiar faces.”
Interestingly, most of the employed women mentioned that the main reason for employment was to find friends and to broaden contacts. All three professionally oriented women and three of seven working mothers had both Japanese and Russian friends. Conversely, most of professional home-makers joined ethnic Russian-Ukrainian communities where they maintained social contacts. Two of the professional home-makers had no friends at all. These findings indicate that participation in social life is an important dimension of cross-national marriage, but also that employment can facilitate community embeddedness.
Community Openness
The case of Selena, who was learning Japanese at the university, shows that community openness to diversity is an important aspect of cross-national marriage. Soon after marriage her husband was transferred from the head office in the capital to a branch office in a city where she was almost the only foreigner. Although Selena could speak Japanese well she did not manage to find any job, even one that did not require special training.
During the job interview she was told that the firm had never employed a foreigner and that the employer was afraida foreign employee would confuse clients. In addition, she did not make any friends in this city and was