Love...a Western concept?

Wow, five days away and I suddenly have so much I want to blog about.

Last night at dinner with some co-workers, the subject of marriage, divorce and mistresses in Japan came up. In a nutshell, men with money and power will almost always have a mistress (or two), their wives will know about it but put up with it and it is usually not grounds for divorce. One of my co-workers noted that the divorce rate in Japan has actually gone up recently, and some of that increase is in the older generations: the wives divorce the husbands, NOT because their husbands are inattentive to them or have mistresses, but because after retirement, their husbands stay home all the time and the women don't want to have to deal with them. Because the implicit understanding when they got married was that the man would go out and work all day and spend very little time in the house or with the family but would bring home a paycheck for the wife, who could pretty much do as she pleased and have her own life. She didn't sign up to actually have a husband at home who she has to spend very much time with - an absentee husband/father was the expectation and the agreement. It's more of a professional/social arrangement.

And like a dumb American, I asked: but what about love?

And my Japanese-American co-worker (who has mostly lived in Japan) replied: that's such a Western concept.

To which I replied: what, you mean LOVE? You think LOVE is a Western concept?

Another co-worker quickly dissipated the discussion (never talk about controversial topics with co-workers, always keep it light and frou frou) so I never got to hear his answer to my question.

But hmph. Is love really a Western concept? If so, it is just one more reason why everything about Japan grates against everything about me. Because I think love is the reason and the answer. The end all and be all. The meaning of life. What makes everything else in life worth it. And if love is a "Western" concept, then f** the east, I choose the west. Didn't I say recently that Japan has no heart? Clearly, any culture where a majority or even a large minority of people believe love is a Western concept lacks heart.

Love and marriage. Are the two not supposed to be inextricably linked? Remember the opening song to "Married with Children" - Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage"? The lyrics go: "love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. This I tell you brother, you can't have one without the other."

You can have love without marriage, but what the hell is the point of marriage without love? A social contract? A meal ticket? I find that so utterly sad and...void.