As a sort of ironic contrast, think of that bureaucrat who just got caught for insider trading. It’s obvious to everyone that through his job he knew that particular stock was going to go up a lot, but his defense is that the purchase was made in his wife’s name. Such an explanation would never hold up in court overseas because what belongs to the husband belongs to the wife and vice versa: that’s the whole principle of joint property. But in Japan, it could be used as a defense, since the wife hypothetically has no “inside” information and her property isn’t shared with her husband, who does have inside information.

Housewives in Japan may seem to hold the purse strings, but in actual fact, as you point out, they have very little financial autonomy. Please answer me this hypothetical question. If I was married to a man who was my sole support, and if he suddenly dropped dead, would I be entitled to access his bank account with a cash card the day after his death? I’ve heard that this is illegal, which may be one explanation for the hesokuri phenomenom.

Are you sure your accounts had two names on them and were with Japanese banks? If so, we’d be very interested in knowing more since a lot of Japanese couples would very much like to have joint accounts. It’s a common query at marriage and financial websites, especially from wives who are very afraid that if their husbands die suddenly the husbands’ money would be lost to them.

Is this a new law? My wife and I had/have a joint bank account(s) in Japan. Is there an exception for “mixed marriages”?