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Answerman - Why Do Girls In Anime Say, "Now I Can't Get Married?"

Isn't the old-fashioned nature of the complaint as much a part of the comic hyperbole as considering something like an accidental skirt-flip being "sexual despoilment"?

. . . I believe Miho says it about doing the Anglerfish Dance (have you seen it?) in Girls und Panzer. . .

Ever since the Sexual Revolution, modern American culture doesn't value virginity. In fact, it actually derides it, especially with males.

Quote:

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make me a match, Find me a find, catch me a catch Matchmaker, Matchmaker Look through your book, And make me a perfect match Fiddler On The Roof

That song's really sad

Russian history is replete with instances of scapegoating and persecution of the Jews. From pogroms throughout the Middle Ages up through the official doctrine of Imperial Russia, repeated instances of Jews being blamed and victimized can be documented. This insidious practice outlasted medieval times and the Enlightenment, and it resurfaced during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, dire repercussions landed on the Russian Jews, who, with the declaration of the May Laws of 1882, were forced to leave urban centres and rural shtetls in Western Russia, and moved to the newly established Pale of Jewish Settlement. The deprivation and economic hardship, exacerbated by mandatory conscription and a spate of anti-Jewish pogroms (most notably the Kishinev Easter pogrom of 1903), stimulated a period of mass emigration of an estimated two million Russian Jews to the United States up until the end of the First World War.

It kinda amazes me anyone would ask this question, and I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Is the writer so detached from women's issues that he (guessing it's a he from the name) doesn't understand the connection between being groped -> feeling "defiled" -> not a virgin -> can't get married? Or sweetly naive because he personally would never think of a woman with sexual experience as "damaged goods" and so doesn't make the connection?

I mean, maybe I'm the ignorant one, but I don't know of any large culture that doesn't, at least historically, place value a woman's "purity". Not that I personally think there's any value to staying a virgin or otherwise "pure" before marriage, Just saying that this view is so widespread across many cultures I can't imagine having never come across that viewpoint.

Justin Sevakis, in the column, wrote:

Miai still happen in Japan, though they're increasingly rare and often the exclusive domain of very traditional families.

Just out of curiosity, exactly what are the characteristics of these Very Traditional Families? (e.g., I would imagine that that such families come exclusively from rural areas. Am I mistaken? )

It's just a joke, it's fine. Nobody believes such a thing anymore in the Western or Eastern world even the most conservative don't think this way around here.

There may be some anime where the line is said seriously, but every time that I can remember hearing it it was a joke.
And the fact that it is stale and dated was part of the joke.

I have actually learned to expect it in certain situations, and I usually get it.

It kinda amazes me anyone would ask this question, and I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Is the writer so detached from women's issues that he (guessing it's a he from the name) doesn't understand the connection between being groped -> feeling "defiled" -> not a virgin -> can't get married? Or sweetly naive because he personally would never think of a woman with sexual experience as "damaged goods" and so doesn't make the connection?

I think that stems, not from a purity standpoint, but from the old notion that only one's husband should be allowed to see them naked. Having someone who is not their husband see them naked would be seen as disgraceful among other things.

2. The idea that virginity=purity may not completely hold true in today's Japan, but it still has plenty of reverberations in their culture. And in most cultures, frankly. Most cultures are guided by that good ol' double standard that boys and men need to be sexual to prove their masculinity, and girls and women can't be sexual (or, in more modern terms as sexual as boys/men) lest it ruin their femininity. If you think that Western society has completely gotten rid of the double standard, your kidding yourself.

I think it depends on what part of the United States you're referring to. I would believe that things like purity and virginity have more importance in the more conservative states.

As for the joke I've only seen it come up 3 times, twice in Kampfer and one in Rumble Roses XX.

If it's dated though, it won't be funny anymore, and what's the point of a joke if it isn't funny?

Maybe I'm seeing some extreme cases, but there were a lot of girls at my high school who became pregnant and were proud of it. They treated giving birth as something of a rite of passage into adulthood (with their parents taking care of the child, who in turn are proud they've become grandparents so soon). There was a project we had to do in one of our classes involving drawing the moment in our lives we were most proud of, and for one of the girls in the class, she chose the day that a friend of hers gave birth.