Lovesick Japan: Sex * Marriage * Romance * Law

Conclusion

Conclusion Mitsutaka, a doctor, had a series of affairs with nurses. His wife, Yuriko, a nurse’s assistant and part-time hostess, became angry. They fought, and he killed her and their children. Guilty. But there’s much more. The Yokohama District Court tells the story, picking up after the couple began living together in 1990, as follows: In January 1991, Mitsutaka learned that Yuriko was pregnant. Because he had no desire to marry her, he had her have an abortion. However, soon thereafter Yuriko became pregnant again. This time, she strongly desired to have the baby. Mitsutaka told Yuriko that he would not marry her even if she gave birth to the child. Yuriko said that she would give birth even if Mitsutaka would not marry her. Mitsutaka then promised that he would acknowledge paternity. A girl was born on November 18, 1991. After the child was born, Mitsutaka adored her, and he thought that a child naturally [yahari] should have a father. He thought Yuriko would approach him about marriage after the child’s birth, but she did not, and, seeing her gentle manner, he decided to marry her. On November 30 of the same year, he 210 Lovesick Japan submitted the couple’s marriage notification form together with the birth registration for the child, whom they named Matsue.1 Within 24 hours of submitting the paperwork for the birth and the marriage to City Hall, Mitsutaka was gone: Mitsutaka went to work at a hospital in Hitachi City, where he lived alone, apart from his family, because of his job [tanshin funin]. As soon as he began single life, he thought he should not have submitted the marriage notification form, he regretted that he had been in such a rush to submit it, and soon he began to think that Yuriko must somehow have tricked him into it. His fond feelings for Yuriko began to turn cold. Mitsutaka could not get rid of the feeling that he had wanted to play freely with women until he turned thirty years old. In January 1992, he propositioned nurses at the hospital where he worked, and he began to have affairs. The more affairs he had with nurses, the more emotionally detached from Yuriko he became. As his affairs became more frequent, he began to come home on weekends less frequently. Yuriko figured out that Mitsutaka was having an affair. When she pressed him for answers, he was evasive . She called the other women on the phone and chastised them. After that, she harbored suspicions toward him and began to monitor his behavior . Mitsutaka hated Yuriko for this, he became even further detached from her, and he did not end the affairs, choosing instead to scrape and claw his way out of each situation in one way or another. In April 1992, Mitsutaka moved home to work in a university hospital, and his relationship with Yuriko and their daughter Matsue improved. Yuriko wanted to move to a house, and they did so. Yuriko became pregnant again, and the couple had a son in February 1993—eleven months after Mitsutaka’s return home. Two months later, Mitsutaka left his job at the university hospital and began to practice medicine at a smaller hospital, which provided him with the considerable salary of $10,000 a month. He paid off credit card debt, “became comfortable in his new job, felt free and rich, and his womanizing habits reemerged; beginning in June, he began to have one affair after another [tsugitsugito] with nurses at the hospital where he worked.” As for Yuriko: As Mitsutaka began coming home late, she realized he was having an affair, and she once again pressed him for answers. Mitsutaka repeatedly avoided Conclusion 211 her questions, and gradually they began to lose their effect; instead, Mitsutaka began to pressure Yuriko. From the beginning, Mitsutaka had thought Yuriko was a flawed wife; she was selfish, she had wrong ideas about money, and she did not properly do the housework or childrearing. When the couple fought, Mitsutaka would attack Yuriko with these thoughts, and Yuriko would respond even more strongly. The couple’s fights would intensify, with each yelling at the other harshly. At times there was violence. During these fights, Mitsutaka argued that because Yuriko did not earn a living, she had no right to voice her opinion. Yuriko reacted by taking parttime jobs, first as a hostess and...