Original photo by monzenmachi/iStock
Adoption in Japan looks quite different than in other places around the world. While the country ranks among the highest in adoptions each year, the majority of adoptees aren’t children — they’re adult men.
The custom is known as mukoyōshi, or “adopted son-in-law,” and it refers to a man being legally adopted by a family, often to carry on the family name and business. Typically this happens when a man marries into the family, though an adult man may also be adopted directly to become a successor.
Before World War II, a Japanese family’s eldest son was legally entitled to inherit the entire family estate. But the 1947 Civil Code abolished that household structure and introduced equal inheritance rights among children and spouses. Even after those reforms, however, many families continued using mukoyōshi adoption to make sure a male would remain the head of the household due to longstanding gendered traditions that favored a male successor to carry on the family’s lineage and assets.
Mukoyōshi is primarily used for matters of business succession; well-known companies such as Suzuki and Kikkoman, for instance, have involved adult adoption of men to keep running their businesses for years.
The United States is the only country whose annual adoption rate tops Japan’s, but adoption in the U.S. is overwhelmingly focused on children. In Japan, children make up a small fraction of total adoptions — roughly 2% of the country’s approximately 80,000 annual adoptions. In the U.S., by contrast, an estimated 80,598 children were adopted in 2022.
Numbers Don't Lie
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China has a tradition known as “ghost marriage” for the deceased.
In some parts of rural northern China, ghost marriages are symbolic ceremonies arranged for people who die before they get married. The idea is rooted in the belief that major life milestones such as marriage should still be fulfilled even after death — that way, the deceased can properly rest and remain integrated into family and ancestral life.
Specific practices vary by region and era. In some cases, families pair two deceased individuals; in others, a living person may marry a deceased partner. Historically, the practice has been about maintaining harmony between the living and the dead as well as family continuity after death.
Nicole is a writer, thrift store lover, and group-chat meme spammer based in Ontario, Canada.
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