3. Disobedience to father-in-law or mother-in-law.
4. Loquacity.
5. Larceny.
6. Jealousy.
7. Bad disease.
As under the Mosaic law, these causes were invented only for the advantage of the husband. A wife had no right even to desire a divorce from her husband.
An examination of the seven causes shows that a woman could be divorced practically at her husband’s pleasure. The New Civil Code has changed all this. A wife has equal rights with her husband to the benefits of the divorce law.
The New Civil Code of Japan is divided into five books, but it is only with Book IV., which deals with the “Family,” that we are at present concerned.
A summary of the present marriage and divorce law of Japan, as translated from Book IV., follows:
Requisites of Marriage.—A man cannot marry before the completion of his seventeenth year or a woman before the completion of her fifteenth year.