For all the constant media brouhaha about people not dating or having sex in Japan, it seems that at least one guy is determined to boost the national average. And challenge the laws about polygamy at the same time.
It’s a case that’s surely not typical and shouldn’t be used as a brush to paint all Japanese guys, but what a story it is.
As featured in late December on Abema TV (sorry, folks, we missed it at the time), Ryuta Watanabe in Sapporo has four “wives” and three kids, and seems to live happily with them.
In fact, 35-year-old Watanabe doesn’t even work but is a househusband taking care of the cooking, etc., and living off the wages of his four “spouses,” who seem to believe he’s a good catch.
Taking turns to sleep with his partners (having given on sleeping with all three at once because it was too physically difficult on the futon), he hopes to gradually increase his offspring and household.
His roost currently comprises: his first wife, Hisaki (22) and their two kids (aged two and one); his second wife, Ayaka, with whom he presently has no children; a third wife, Chiharu (27) and their five-year-old son; and a fourth wife (24), Chihiro, who did not appear on the show, and does not live together with the others.
Watanabe is actually married legally to just one woman; the other women are common-law spouses. Whenever he wants to marry another woman, Watanabe technically has to divorce the previous one first, since Japan does not allow polygamy. A polyamorous relationship, on the other hand, is fine, and that’s what’s going on here.
Watanabe hopes to change everyone’s surnames to his so that even after a legal divorce (and the wives and children revert to their previous or their own separate household and name in the Japanese family register system), they would appear to be one family.
The arrangement might bring to might old kings and their wives and concubines, and Watanabe is indeed a fan of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and hopes to best his 53 children.
The women also help look after each other’s children, which makes a lot of sense considering their offspring are half-siblings and all live in the same home in Sapporo. (There’s also a dog, just to make things more crowded.)
Watanabe began his marital adventures a few years ago. He met his fourth wife on a dating app when he was 31 and also starting dating his first wife at this time. The three of them began cohabiting.
When he was 33, he started dating his second and third wives. They also moved in with Watanabe and his harem. His fourth wife moved out (we wonder to what extent he maintains a relationship with her) and his first wife gave birth to their first child.
When he was 35, his first and third wives became pregnant and gave birth to the latest batch of children.
Watanabe is currently on the lookout for his fifth “wife.” Ladies, if you fancy living this kind of life in Sapporo, you know who to call.
