Reuters Posted online: Saturday, March 19, 2005 at 1147 hours IST Updated: Saturday, March 19, 2005 at 1704 hours IST
Tokyo, March 19: The only daughter of Emperor Akihito was formally betrothed on Saturday -- at 35 years old, one of an increasing number of Japanese women who have chosen to wait for their wedding bells.
Princess Nori's betrothal to Yoshiki Kuroda, 39, who works in the urban planning department at Tokyo city hall, was sealed in a ceremony when a messenger from his family brought traditional gifts -- bolts of silk, rice wine and sea bream -- to the Imperial Palace.
A senior courtier accepted the presents, met the Emperor, Empress and Princess Nori, and conveyed their message of acceptance. Similar gifts were to be delivered to Kuroda's family later.
A date for the wedding has not been set, but it is likely to take place this autumn.
It used to be said in Japan that an unmarried woman was like Christmas cake: no good after 25.
But Nori joins the growing ranks of Japanese women who are choosing to get married later, reflecting changes in society and the workplace and worrying policymakers concerned about a falling birthrate.
Census figures showed that in 2000, some 54 per cent of Japanese women in their late 20s were unmarried, compared to only 24 per cent two decades earlier.
Couples are also opting to have fewer children, or none at all. The average number of children a Japanese woman gives birth to in her lifetime fell to a record low of 1.29 in 2003.
Among women Princess Nori's age -- 35 to 39 -- 13.8 per cent were single in 2000 compared to a scant 4.4 per cent in 1980.
"Nobody in Japan thinks badly of Nori because she took until 35 to get married, though," said Harueko Kato, a professor at Tokyo Women's Christian University.
"It merely reflects Japanese society these days."
MORE JOBS FOR WOMEN
Analysts said much of the change was due to the 1985 Equal Employment Opportunity Law, which opened more jobs to women.
As a result, more females have entered the work force and become economically self-reliant.
But with few Japanese men offering to do housework -- a recent government survey showed that men with working wives help out only about 21 minutes a day -- and a shortage of daycare, many women find balancing work, home and children too much.
A survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper recently showed 7 in 10 single women preferred to stay unwed.
"A woman simply loses too many things if she gets married," said social commentator Tomoko Inukai.
"It's very hard to balance both work and a household."
Princess Nori, also known as Sayako, will have to leave the imperial family and the quiet palace in central Tokyo for good, about which she has expressed some anxiety.
But like other women her age, Nori insists she will keep her part-time job, at an ornithology institute east of Tokyo.
In this, too, Nori is reflecting a country-wide trend, despite the fact that some Japanese men still prefer their wives to stay home.
"I want to work, so if I were told by a man that I couldn't, I wouldn't marry him," said a 34-year-old single Tokyo woman who plans to start her own company.
"There weren't many men who seemed interested when I spoke of my hopes for my business," added the woman, who declined to be identified. "It seems hard to find people who understand."
