White Day / International Marriage Day in Japan, and nationality

Japanese & American love
was very taboo around WW2

March 14th is a recognized in Japan for many reasons, the top two of which are:

1. It is "White Day" (ホワイトデー {howaito dē}), a day where boys & men reciprocate for the gifts they receive from women on Valentine's Day exactly one month before. White Day was invented by Japan in 1978, and now the "tradition" has spread and some men in close Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan, China) also follow the commercially invented custom.
2. It is much lesser known as "International Marriage Day in Japan" (国際結婚の日 {kokusai kekkon no hi}), recognizing the day that Japanese nationals were permitted by law to marry non-Japanese nationals for the very first time. This law was enacted during the Meiji Era (明治時代 {Meiji jidai}): 1873

When the first marriage attempt between a national and a non-national occurred, neither the "Meiji Constitution" (『明治憲法』 {"Meiji Kempō"}) nor the corresponding Nationality Law (国籍法 {kokusekihō}) — due to its Article 18 — it spawned, existed yet. Those wouldn't come into existence until 1890 — seventeen years after the first international marriage in Japan.

In fact, what could be called the first modern nationalized Japanese family register (戸籍 {koseki}) didn't come into existence until just one year earlier: 1872.

Those familiar with the modern late 20th/early 21st century form of the Japanese family register know that it's designed with the following intentional limitations:

• 

  Old B4 style family register
  Boxes are pre-printed.

  Everybody (head of the family and the spouse and children listed under him/her) needs to have the same family name. While this is often a man, it's more common for a man to take a woman's family name for marriage than it is in most western European countries.

• 

  New A4 style family register
  Boxes are computer printed.

  The details that track lineage track Japanese nationals (regardless of sex, race, national origin, or ethnicity) only. While it is true that foreigners who are spouses or children are not noted in the same way as Japanese nationals, it is not true that this means Japanese law doesn't recognize non-Japanese as spouses or children of Japanese.
  
  With the earlier analog (big white B4 pieces of paper with the text printed vertically RTL) versions of the register, this was more obvious because some sections for Japanese parents and children had their own boxes. With the new digital versions that are printed on forgery-resistant standard A4 sized paper which are printed horizontally LTR, it's harder to notice this because the blank details simply aren't printed within the respective event/matter (事項 {jikō}) areas.

Anyway, the point was that what this early couple did was unprecedented so there was no law on how to handle it, what the consequences were for nationality, or how to record it on the family register. Because of this, the matter went to the Meiji government, which had just begun "modernizing" Japan to western ways in 1868 — five (5) years prior to this marriage — which is when the Meiji Restoration (明治維新 {Meiji Ishin}) is recognized as having started. Even the concept of passports was pretty new back then; Japan issued its first passport in 1867, just six (6) years prior to its first international marriage.

The highest organ of government in Japan at that time, the 太政官 {Daijōkan} or the Great Council of State — which would later be replaced by a parlimentary Cabinet vested by the to-be-written Constitution of the Empire of Japan (大日本帝國憲法 {Dai-nippon teikoku kempō}) in seventeen (17) years — ruled on the matter and published it in the formal records of the time:

JACAR Ref. A04017239400, 〔布告・達原書〕単行書・布告原書・第百三号・明治6年03月 第十類 単行書（国立公文書館）

In summary, the government concluded the following for this one-off unprecedented case:

• Permission/License (允許 {inkyo}) would be granted for non-Japanese and Japanese subjects (national) to marry
• A Japanese woman subject would lose her "social standing" (分限 {bugen}) — which was the word to mean "nationality" (国籍 {kokuseki}) before the first Japanese constitution — as a Japanese (日本人 {nihonjin}).
• If a Japanese man marries a non-Japanese woman, and the non-Japanese woman agrees to follow the laws/ways of Japan, she gets Japanese "social standing" (i.e. nationality)
• Any children brought into a family between a married Japanese man and a non-Japanese woman — through birth or adoption — would also be recognized as Japanese.
• Any children with a non-Japanese father and Japanese mother would not be recognized as Japanese.

This type of acquisition of nationality, through marriage, is known as jus matrimonii. Nowadays, most nationality laws are based on a combination of jus sanguis (by parent(s) nationality) and jus soli (by where one is born). Having family connections to nationals (or sometimes permanent residents) of a state often loosens or eases the requirements for naturalization (and permanent residency and some types of foreign residency status), but these days, you do not have to be married to a Japanese national in order to acquire Japanese nationality.

A page from the Meiji Nationality Law
describing how a foreigner becomes
Japanese.

The new Nationality Law for Japan's new Constitution incorporated a lot of the jus matrimonii principles it decided on in its Nationality Law (國籍法kokuseki-hō) released in 1899 that accompanied the introduction of its new Constitution, which was inspired by a lot of study of Prussian and European (and to a lesser extent, American) laws and constitutions of the time.

The first nationality law also introduced the first rules for naturalization and introduced the word into law (written as 歸化 {kika}, using the old Japanese glyph (旧字体 {kyūjitai}) for 【帰】 {[ki]} (RETURN; ➊ return, come back, go back, take one's leave ➋ settle in place, conclude; ➌ follow, yield to, pledge allegiance to)：『帰化』 {"kika"}. Interestingly, the modern nationality law does not use that word, and instead uses less ambiguous variations of the phrase 国籍取得 {kokuseki shutoku}: nationality acquisition.

It is from this constitution and its corresponding nationality law that the concepts of 国民 {kokumin} (legally defined Japanese national) and 国籍 {kokuseki} (legal nationality) are defined.

By today's modern standards of human rights which give equality to the sexes, especially with respect to equality in marriage, Imperial Japan's exclusionary and discriminatory nationality law looks harsh and quaint. However, compared to many other countries of the time, the decision to allow miscegenation (異人種間結婚 {i-jinshu-kan kekkon}), meaning marriage / relations between those of different races, was quite progressive for that era. Also, Imperial Japan allowing non-racially or ethnic Japanese to naturalize was also very radical compared to the nationality laws of many other countries of the time, including relatively progressive and racially & ethnically diverse countries such as America.

To compare, many of the states of America at that time forbade or made illegal marriage (and sexual relations) between east Asians — including "Mongoloid", "Chinese", and "Japanese" — and Americans through the various laws at the time. Many of those laws would stay in effect until the beginning to the middle of the 20th century.

Perhaps it was because of the Meiji Revolution, in which Japan embraced the new and foreign ways in order to catch up with the West (and avoid the fate of colonization that happened to many other Asian countries of the time), that Meiji Japan decided that international marriage should be permitted. Alas, the government's thought process and justifications were not published with the laws, so the reasons behind their thinking are left to perhaps be discovered in another document by a future historian.

Early Japanese international marriage

Koizumi YAKUMO (八雲小泉YAKUMO Koizumi), né Lafcadio Hearn, encountered both sides of the fence, when he illegally married non-white Alethea FOLEY in America, yet legally married a Japanese subject in Japan. He would get around the jus matrimonii restrictions regarding Japanese nationality — in order to preserve the Japanese nationality of both his new wife and son — by taking advantage of the new legally defined naturalization (歸化kika) procedures that would be coded into the new nationality law (國籍法kokuseki-hō) created from the Meiji Constitution (明治憲法Meiji Kempō).

Japanese-Americans of that time couldn't circumvent racial / ethnic / nationality restrictions in America by naturalizing like Lafcadio Hearn did because U.S. laws also didn't allow Japanese and many other non-whites (even after African-American blacks were emancipated) to become American citizens. This restricted Japanese from doing many things in America, not just marriage.

To be fair, many other countries of the world at that time had similar restrictions and prohibitions regarding marrying outside their "group" (endogamy).

It wouldn't be until 1985 when Japan would again revamp its nationality laws to remove discrimination against sex in its nationality law: as of 1985, nationality could be passed to children at birth via jus sanguis from not just the Japanese national father but the Japanese national mother too.

So for those of you out there who have an international marriage (regardless of whether its between a Japanese and non-Japanese), congratulations to you. Happy White Day / International Marriage Day in Japan! And Happy π {3.14} Day & Happy Pie {π} Day & Happy Estonian Language Day & Happy Constitution {Andorra} Day & Happy Beautiful White [Skin] Day {美白の日} & Happy 国民融和日 {kokumin nyūwa no hi} (National/Citizen Reconciliation Day).

Let us remember that there were a lot of people before us who had a much more difficult time with laws and prejudice. There still are places in the world that don't have many of the freedoms of marriage that others have and continue to fight for rights. These brave pioneers struggled and fought to marry the perfect person for them, regardless of their nationality, race, religion, ethnicity, and sex.

A good movie about Japanese/American
marriage, the War, and Executive Order 9066