TIL: In Japan, if your spouse dies you can divorce your in-laws

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Posthumous divorce on the rise in Japan as a way to distance oneself from in-laws

https://soranews24.com/2024/09/05/posthumous-divorce-on-the-rise-in-japan-as-a-way-to-distance-oneself-from-in-laws/

Tell your late spouse's family how you really feel. Tell them with a divorce.

Posthumous divorce’s technical but less popular name is a “notification of marital relationship termination” (inzoku kankei shuryo todoke) which means one is officially severing ties with the family of a deceased spouse. What’s particularly strange about it is that it doesn’t really serve any purpose for a vast majority of people aside from a government-approved official statement that someone finds their in-laws unbearable.