Paper short abstract:

Based on the data from a survey in China and Japan, this study will focus on the attitude of women students toward same-sex marriage from a comparative examination of social and cultural progress in the two countries.

Paper long abstract:

One of the top-ten news in 2015 in China was about same-sex marriage. Mr. Sun Wenlin and his partner Mr. Hu Mingliang applied for a marriage license in June 2015, three days before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to extend same-sex marriage rights across all 50 states. When the registry denied their application, insisting only heterosexual couples could marry, the couple took their fight to court. In a country like China where homosexuality was removed from an official list of mental illnesses for clinical treatment in 2001, same-sex marriage is still officially unacceptable.

Compared with China, Japan seemed a little more forward. On November 5 2015, Ms. Koyuki Higashi and Ms. Hiroku Masuhara reportedly became the first same-sex couple in Japan to receive an official certificate that recognizes their union. Shibuya's legislators voted in March 2015 to grant marriage certificates to LGBT couples, making the ward the first in Japan to recognize same-sex unions. Setagaya, another of Tokyo's 23 wards, voted to do the same a few months later.

How do the ordinary people respond to same-sex marriage and what seem to be the backgrounds? Based on the data from a survey in Japan and China, this study will focus on the attitude of women students toward concept of marriage from a comparative examination of social and cultural progress in the two countries.