You find your future spouse in Omiai? How to marry in Japan.

There are generally two processes to marriage– love marriage and Omiai marriage. This is a old Japanese means to decide a future wife/husband.

Love marriage is a procedure somebody falls into love in his/her normal life and after that she/he proposes for marriage if he/she likes the partner.

Omiai marriage is not like previous one but aiming at just seeking for a future spouse, so it holds an interview between a man and a woman with a view to marriage. The key person who makes a man and a woman match, proceeds interviews until their engagement. It’s far different from love marriage.
It takes from one day to three months generally, sometimes a half year, in Omiai marriage. It doesn’t matter whether you have romantic feeling or not, because Omiai only tries to find a husband/wife-to-be.

An Omiai system which requires a broker who introduces two persons to a one-to-one interview, is common in old days but nowadays people mostly choose love marriage. Many dating agencies that matches registered people in their companies are established for Omiai marriage, or people who want to be married rely on some relatives and friends searching a good person for Omiai marriage.

By Edo period(A.D.1603-1868) in some regions, (O)miai is a step for marriage because it is not permitted for a person to have dates. This Miai was named after “mi-awasu”, which means a future wife was brought to a man.

In that time, a lot of (O)miai was in a women’s house, and after that a man expressed his feeling to her at that place. For example, a broker and a man sat down in her house, they received tea with snacks from her and if he liked her, he drank tea or took snacks or left his fan before going out the room that showed his marriage hope.
If he doesn’t have willing to marry her, he does opposite stuffs that I mentioned before.

These days more and more people look for their future spouses at Konkatsu parties instead of Omiai. Konkatsu party is the place for people who want to marry to communicate and find the one for 2-3 hours.

It has been spreading before 5-20 years. Event hosting companies and advertising agencies held Konkatsu parties in all Japan at that time, sometimes resulting in troubles such as shills and careless administrations. Although they made bad behavior to customers, bad agencies were getting reduced that led healthy companies to be alive.

Nowadays it estimated that attendances are more than a million in a year. The parties are effective and you can meet a great number of people to get chances. The parties have a wide range of varieties, for instance, a BBQ party, a large party or a small party.

Here is Japanese marriage culture!