Mukoyōshi

A mukoyōshi (婿養子, lit. 'adopted son-in-law') is an adult man who is adopted into a Japanese family as a daughter's husband, and who takes the family's surname.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (April 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

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Generally in Japan, a woman takes her husband's name and is adopted into his family. When a family, especially one with a well established business, has no male heir but has an unwed daughter of a suitable age, she will marry the mukoyōshi, a man chosen especially for his ability to run the family business.^[1] If there is no daughter, the candidate can take a bride from outside his adopted family (fūfu-yōshi: 夫婦養子). This is done to preserve the business and name of the family when there is no suitable male heir, since traditionally businesses are inherited by the oldest male heir. Mukoyōshi is also practiced if there is no capable male heir to run the family business.^[1]

This is a centuries-old tradition and is still widely practiced today. Many Japanese companies with household names, such as Nintendo, Kikkoman, and Toyota, are owned by families that have adopted this practice.^[1]

This adult adoption may take place in marriages where the woman's family is of a higher socio-economic rank than the man's family; where the woman has no brothers who can continue the family name; when the man has been disowned by his own family; and/or when the man's natural family has a notorious or shameful background and he prefers to hide his identity. A non-Japanese husband may also take his Japanese wife's surname instead of Japanizing his own when he takes Japanese nationality.

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[1]
"BBC News - Adult adoptions: Keeping Japan's family firms alive". bbc.co.uk. 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2012.

Hanley, Susan; Wolf, Arthur (1985). Family and Population in East Asian History. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1232-8.
Hendry, Joy (1989). Marriage in changing Japan: community and society. C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN 0-8048-1506-2.
Tamura, Linda (1993). The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06359-7.

A mukoyōshi (婿養子, lit. 'adopted son-in-law') is an adult man who is adopted into a Japanese family as a daughter's husband, and who takes the family's surname.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (April 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,377 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:婿養子]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|ja|婿養子}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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[1]
"BBC News - Adult adoptions: Keeping Japan's family firms alive". bbc.co.uk. 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2012.

Hanley, Susan; Wolf, Arthur (1985). Family and Population in East Asian History. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1232-8.
Hendry, Joy (1989). Marriage in changing Japan: community and society. C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN 0-8048-1506-2.
Tamura, Linda (1993). The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06359-7.

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