http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-haisha/is-it-time-to-change-our-adultery_b_5242171.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Looks like we just need to marry for social status. Forget love and companionship. That's just a bunch of garbage.

An excerpt:

The Japanese culture, which views marriage as vital for social status, not something you do for love, has a booming adultery industry. Online adultery site Ashley Madison says Japan was the fastest country to reach 1 million users, and the ratio of women to men on the site is about two-to-one.

I worked in Japan off and on for nearly a decade and often heard people say that marriage was more of a business and didn't encompass the whole being. Men would say, "I got married because you have to marry to be respected as a man. You can't get a job in a good company if you're not married." Similarly, women often said, "If you're a woman and you're not married, it looks bad on you, it's hard to fit in, and you can't have children or you and your child will be shamed." As a result, many people in Japan get married to anyone, whether they're attracted to them or not, because in that culture marriage makes you legitimate, which is true in many cultures. In fact, I once asked several men why they regularly visited hostess clubs (night clubs that employ female staff to act like "rent-a-girlfriends" to men), and they all said similar sentiments: "My wife is cool with it. That's our culture. She doesn't love me either. She's thrilled that I'm gone and I'm not bugging her for sex or company." Clearly, in the Japanese culture, the concept of marriage is viewed very differently than the widely held beliefs of it in the West, showing that marriage cannot be a one-size-fits-all concept.