In a country where reticence about one’s private life is the norm, these men are trying to prove their worth to their wives by making their vows as public as possible.
"I’m sorry I always forget to put the toilet seat down," confessed one man in a suit and tie as he balanced on the beer box on a recent Saturday in Shimbashi, Tokyo’s hub of "salaryman" corporate workers. "I hereby declare that I will stop going to the hostess bar, I’m sorry," said another man as his wife looked on amid a crowd of curious bystanders. Said another man: "I love you, even though I don’t really say it."
The 20 men taking part in the unlikely rally chant their slogan together: "Say ‘thank you’ without hesitating. Say ‘sorry’ without being scared. Say ‘I love you’ without being shy."
The gathering is the brainchild of Shuichi Amano, a magazine editor in the southern city of Fukuoka and founder of the National Teishu-Kampaku Association, loosely translated as the Chauvinistic Husbands Association.
He started the group when, in 1999, he felt the need for drastic action to prevent his own marriage of more than 20 years from falling apart. He was then in his late 40s and found that many of his friends were also on the verge of marital breakdown and divorce. In a social phenomenon that has even been turned into a popular television drama, a growing number of Japanese women have begun suing their husbands for divorce once the men retire.
The aim of the women is to bring an end to longstanding marital problems caused by the indifference of their husbands as well as their incompetence in the home.
"Many husbands are making a living managing risks at their businesses, but they neglect the ones at home," Amano, now 55, told AFP.
"The old ways don’t work anymore and we husbands have to get out of our little fantasy of having ultimate power over our wives," he said.
"Marriage is like a triathlon to love one person throughout the race. Winning or losing isn’t important - you have to overcome every bump on the way to complete the race."
Amano tried to devote himself to pleasing his wife by doing laundry and dishes and, he admitted, pretending to listen when she chatted even if the conversation did not interest him.
Through his own interviews with women, Amano said he found that everything boiled down to the desire of wives to hear their husbands say "three magic phrases" more often: "Thank you," "Sorry," and "I love you".
He describes his technique in saving marriages as "smile age" - husbands accumulating the goodwill of their wives.
Even in his own case, he said, the words seemed empty at first, coming as they did from a man who throughout his
life had rarely displayed any emotion.
"My wife was pretty suspicious of my change at the beginning but after a couple of years, I believe that she has regained her smile," Amano said.
