Sebastian Palm wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: ffml-bounce@anifics.com [mailto:ffml-bounce@anifics.com] On Behalf
Of Raye Johnsen
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 2:34 AM
To: ffml@anifics.com; rayeml@topica.com
Subject: [FFML] [Fic][Naruto] Harmonia, part 1


Harmonia

Author's Notes:
	1. The 'no marriage before thirty' law is not
canonical, but rather my way of accounting for the
fact that there are no young married couples floating
around Konoha.

   

You're right that the absence of young married couples is conspicuous, but I
think the explanation for it (if there is one aside from the Mangaka just
forgetting about it) is more along the lines of lack of people in that same
age bracket. 

 

You forget that Japanese manga is a reflection of Japanese
society. In Japan, the average age of a first marriage is 28 for
women. The average age when a first kid is born is 32. The
"ideal" in Japanese society right now is to try to get married
by 29 and to have your first kid by 30. Japanese women also
have an average of 1.35 kids.

These are very worrisome figures to the Japanese government.
Having less than 2 kids means the population is shrinking and
social security programs are designed around a growing population,
not a shrinking one. The average age of the Japanese population
is increasing, placing more of a burden on the smaller younger
population. The government has passed several laws in the
recent decade in an attempt to get women to marry younger and
have more kids. Things like longer maternity leave and tax
incentives for marriage and having kids.

So if it looks to us like there are no young couples in Konoha,
it's because the manga artist is drawing what he's grow up seeing
in Japan.

By the way, the only other country with an older age of first marriage
and less kids is Ireland. They are REALLY desperate to change
that there. The US is well down the list with an average age of
25 and an average of about 2.3 kids.



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'