Good Spouses Day in Japan Date in the current year: November 22, 2024

Good Spouses Day celebrates and strengthens the bond between married couples and promotes appreciation, gratitude, and mutual respect within marriages. The celebration was initiated in 1988 by the Leisure Development Center (now the Japan Productivity Center), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The date of November 22 was chosen because of a play on words (goroawase): the numbers 11/22 can be read as “ii fuufu”, which sounds similar to “good married couple”.

Soon after, department stores began selling holiday-themed items, and some restaurants began offering special dinner menus for the occasion. However, it took some time for the holiday to become mainstream, after a committee to promote it was established in 1998 and the Couple of the Year contest was launched in 2000. The Couple of the Year is a celebrity couple chosen by public vote.

Since the mid-1990s, Good Spouses Day has also become a popular day for submitting marriage registrations, as it it is believed that tying the knot on November 22 will lead to a healthy and long-lasting marriage (in Japan, no ceremony is required to get married; all a couple needs to do to have their marriage legally recognized is to submit the necessary documents to the municipal registrar to change their status in the family register).

Japanese celebrities who got married on November 22 include actress and singer Ritsuko Tanaka, musicians Tetsyua Komuro and Keiko, actress Haruka Igawa, mixed martial artist Genki Sudo, news anchor Naoko Suzuki, table tennis player Jun Mizutani, soccer player Riku Matsuda, actress Mitsu Dan and manga artist Toru Seino, comedian Natsu Ando, and comedian Masayasu Wakabayashi. However, some of them have already divorced their spouses.

On Good Spouses Day, many Japanese take time to appreciate each other and strengthen their relationship. They may exchange gifts, go out for a special meal, enjoy a romantic date, or even take a mini-vacation. With many businesses, especially restaurants and shops, offering discounts, promotions, and special offers for couples celebrating this day, there are plenty of celebratory options to choose from.

In recent years, Good Spouses Day has become part of Japan’s efforts to promote family values and address the challenges of declining marriage and birth rates. Family has always played an important role in Japanese society, but economic stagnation has made it more difficult for young couples to start a conventional family, and there has been a tendency for people to marry later in life and have fewer children. The Good Spouses Day campaign aims to highlight the benefits of a supportive, healthy marital relationship and encourage young people to start families. In addition, Japanese LGBTQ+ organizations have used Good Spouses Day to promote marriage equality.