Japan's 'Friendship Marriages': When Love Isn't the Point

In a cozy home in Japan's Chugoku region, a 30-something couple goes about their evening routine. Their toddler sleeps peacefully in mom's room while dad relaxes in his own space nearby. They share household duties, take family outings, and present every appearance of domestic bliss to the outside world. 

There's just one thing: they've never been intimate, never shared a bed, and maintain separate finances. Welcome to the world of Japan's "friendship marriages" - a quietly growing phenomenon that's reshaping how we think about family, love, and social survival in one of the world's most conformist societies.

The couple, identified only as A and B by Kyodo News, represents a fascinating response to Japan's impossible equation: intense pressure to marry and have children, combined with a society that still largely rejects LGBTQ+ relationships. Their solution? A platonic partnership that satisfies family expectations while allowing both to remain true to their sexual identities.

To understand friendship marriages, you first need to grasp just how suffocating Japan's marriage pressure can be. In a society where Baron Hozumi once declared that remaining single was "the greatest crime a man could commit," the expectation to marry hasn't just lingered - it's become institutionalized.

"Marriage and having children are still prerequisites for being considered a true 'adult' in Japanese society," explains Professor Kuboda Hiroyuki from Nihon University's family sociology department. It's not just about personal fulfillment; it's about social legitimacy, family honor, and accessing everything from housing loans to workplace respect.

The pressure starts early and never really stops. Parents routinely interrogate adult children about dating prospects. Extended family members offer unsolicited matchmaking advice at every gathering. Even well-meaning friends can't help but ask when you're finally going to "settle down."

For LGBTQ+ individuals, this creates an almost impossible bind. Japan remains the only G7 nation without legal recognition for same-sex unions, despite polling showing nearly 70% public support for marriage equality. While over 60% of the population now lives in areas offering partnership certificates, these provide limited legal benefits and zero protection from family disappointment.

A and B's journey to friendship marriage began in 2019 on an internet forum for people seeking exactly this arrangement. She realized she was attracted to women during middle school; he never felt sexual desire for women despite trying to date. Both faced relentless pressure from parents who had no idea about their children's sexual orientations.

After six months of getting to know each other's values and expectations, they met each other's families, moved in together, and officially registered their marriage in 2021. Two years later, they welcomed a child through artificial insemination.

Their living arrangement is meticulously organized around mutual respect and personal space. Separate bedrooms, separate finances, shared childcare duties. The wife handles nighttime parenting while maintaining her own room. They coordinate schedules but don't police each other's activities. Both remain open to romantic relationships with others, with full consent from their spouse.

"It's like having two individual happinesses existing side by side rather than family happiness," A explains. B describes their relationship as "like living with a comrade-in-arms."

The couple found each other through Coloris, a Tokyo-based friendship marriage consultation service that's been operating since 2015. In just under a decade, they've facilitated 324 such marriages - a number that might seem small until you consider how stigmatized and underground this practice remains.

The demographics are telling: over 80% of male members identify as gay, while more than 90% of female members are asexual or experience no sexual attraction to others. Their motivations vary but generally fall into three categories: wanting children and legal parenthood rights, reassuring worried parents, and finding life companionship without romantic expectations.

What's particularly striking is how friendship marriages differ legally from fraudulent arrangements. While fake marriages for visa purposes or other ulterior motives lack genuine marital intent and can face legal consequences, friendship marriages involve real commitment to partnership - just without the sexual component that society typically assumes.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of friendship marriages is how they're not entirely foreign to Japanese marriage culture. Recent surveys reveal that Japan has some of the world's highest rates of sexless marriages, with 64.2% of married couples reporting no sexual contact for at least a month, according to 2023 data from the Japan Family Planning Association.

This isn't necessarily dysfunction - it's often evolution. As Kyodo News noted, "Even ordinary couples who married for love often find their bonds strengthening more as life and childcare partners than as lovers over time. Many spend their lives together as precious family without sexual relations."

Japan's work culture, with its infamous long hours and complete devotion to employers, leaves many couples physically and emotionally exhausted. When you're returning home after 12-hour days, intimacy often becomes the first casualty. The difference with friendship marriages is that the absence of sexual expectations is intentional from the start, rather than a gradual erosion of romance.

Friendship marriages reveal fascinating contradictions in Japanese society. The same culture that created these impossible marriage pressures has also produced some of Asia's most progressive LGBTQ+ advocacy, with local governments leading the charge on partnership recognition while the national government lags behind.

The phenomenon also highlights how social change happens in Japan - not through dramatic confrontation, but through quiet adaptation within existing structures. Rather than demanding immediate recognition of same-sex marriage, these couples are creating workarounds that satisfy immediate needs while potentially building acceptance for broader changes.

"In the current situation where same-sex marriage isn't legally recognized, friendship marriage becomes a legally problem-free way for sexual minorities to receive social recognition and institutional benefits," Professor Kuboda explains. "It's essentially a last resort."
Whether friendship marriages represent a temporary stopgap or a permanent new model of family formation remains unclear. Recent court victories in Sapporo, Tokyo, and other cities have declared Japan's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, though these rulings don't immediately change the law.

What's certain is that younger Japanese are increasingly prioritizing personal authenticity over social expectations. The rise of friendship marriages, alongside declining marriage rates overall, suggests that traditional family models are adapting whether society officially sanctions it or not.

For A and B, their arrangement works precisely because it's honest about what it is and isn't. They've found companionship, shared purpose in raising their child, and relief from family pressure - all while maintaining their individual identities and leaving space for potential romantic relationships elsewhere.

It's not the fairy tale their parents might have envisioned, but in a society where nearly a third of people question whether marriage has any point at all, perhaps pragmatic partnership is exactly what modern families need.

Their story challenges us to reconsider fundamental assumptions about love, marriage, and family - and suggests that sometimes the most radical act is simply being honest about what you actually want from life.