It was encouraged during the American occupation in the belief that such Western ways might promote democracy and erode the patriarchal household system.

ECONOMIST: A new book on love and the law in Japan

Concluding that the wife was driven mad by domestic abuse, they plot to make absolutely sure of her acquittal by secretly destroying the evidence: the patriarchal legal system, they believe, is not fit to judge a woman.

ECONOMIST: Women's literature in America