Japanese husbands may want to cry “entrapment” over the practices of a company that hires professional seducers to help unhappy wives get rid of their husbands.

In most U.S. states, you can just say sayonara to husbands who are belligerent, boorish or belching bores. But In Japan, where women’s rights are not highly valued, wives now see the value in fetching divorces by using fetching women to lure their husbands, thus giving them the necessary grounds for divorce.

The Times of London ran an excerpt from Lesley Downer’s new book, The Last Concubine, which reports the blow by blow — pardon the expression — of several of these stings. Here’s one:

“3.30 pm. Mr. A is outside a bank in a busy part of Ikebukuro, a faintly seedy area of Tokyo, waiting for his date. He beams as she teeters across the road on high heels. Kyoko, 20, is half his age. She has a mane of black hair, sloe eyes, a fetching smile and a cute giggle. Her blouse is open to reveal her cleavage and she has on a short skirt and sheer black tights. Mr. A is a bald 40-year-old salesman in a crumpled gray suit and glasses.

“Mr. A doesn’t know that a team of private investigators is recording his every move. The boss, the ebullient Mr. Tomiya, lurks behind a lamppost on the other side of the road and takes photographs as Kyoko meets Mr. A. Tomiya’s equipment includes a packet of cigarettes and a pen, both of which are actually cameras. Shimizu, a heavy-set man with a bullet head and cropped hair, carries a black bag. It contains a camera with which he films continuously through a tiny hole in the bag. A third man acts as a lookout. …

“When presented with the evidence, the embarrassed husband not only agrees to the divorce but agrees to favorable terms for the wife.”

Imagine being a refugee from a war-torn country and being told that in order to stay in safety, you had to get divorced. I’m pretty sure we can all say that would be tragic and a travesty of justice.

Now imagine you had two spouses, and the country you were living in said you had to obey the law and pick one. Not such a travesty of justice anymore, is it?

An unidentified Iraqi man has recently decided that he would rather go back to Iraq than stay in Denmark and give up one of his wives. Man, even writing the words “one of his wives” freaks me out. It seems like many of the men I know have a hard enough time being married to one woman, let alone two.

The lawyer handling his case explains the situation like this: “Most of all his wives are saddened by this affair; they don't feel welcome in Denmark.” When I read that the first time, it sounded like they were saying most of his wives were saddened. As in, most of them are saddened, but the rest are handling it like troopers. How many wives does this guy have? But no, he’s only got two — and they’re both bummed.

The crazy thing about this whole situation is that if he did divorce one of his wives, no one in the family would face deportation. They’d all get to stay. The wife who got the axe could still stay in the same house. Let’s face it, they’re in Denmark — nobody’s going to stone him for having two baby mamas. But he likes his family the way it is, so he’s packing up the wives and kids and heading back home. “Now they have left to see how things are in Basra,” says his lawyer.

Well, I think we all know how things are in Basra, but the best of luck to him. I hope to God nothing happens to his children when he gets there or he will be regretting his decision for the rest of his days.

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Phil Collins isn’t having Another Day in Paradise this week, because he will be paying his third wife, Swiss-born Orianne Cevey, around $47 million in their divorce case, the largest payout ever by a British entertainer.

But at least the 57-year-old singer-songwriter has had a Groovy Kind of Love in the past few years with WCBS-TV anchorwoman Dana Tyler, a divorced woman, 49, who at least is closer to his age.

The two met when Tyler interviewed him in 2005 and they realized there was something In the Air Tonight.

Cevey acknowledged in a later interview that the couple had grown apart in 2005, and were leading Separate Lives. “We really got on well and then we realized our interests were not the same anymore,” said Cevey, 35, who met the singer when she was 22.

But she says, he will always Be in My Heart since she is looking on the “positive side.”

He has agreed that That’s Just the Way It Is, and, frankly, I Don’t Care Anymore.

Collins will keep a home in near Lake Geneva, in Switzerland, near their two young sons, Nicolas, 8, and Matthew, 4, as well as a bachelor pad in New York and a home in England.

But this is shaping up to be a far more amicable divorce than his previous two. Maybe he has learned from experience.

To end his relationship with his second wife, Jill Taverman, after he met Orianne, Collins gave her the heave-ho via fax. Apparently he couldn’t wait One More Night.

(The fax maneuver was worthy of the Artful Dodger.)

However, he still was generous in his divorce settlement, which at the time was more than $34 million for a 14 year relationship. They had a daughter, Lily, together.

Collins also had an earlier marriage to Andrea Bertorelli, which ended in 1980, and produced two children, Simon, 28, and Joelyi, 33.

Like everywhere else in the world, divorce rates are rising in Egypt. It's not too surprising, really — we've written before about the rising statistics of divorce in basically every country where it's legal. According to an article I recently read, though, the rate of divorce in Egypt isn't just up. It's way up.

It seems that almost 50 percent of couples are getting divorced. That's comparable to most of the Western world, but rare for an Islamic country. Here's the interesting part, though — these couples are getting divorced within the first four years of marriage, and one of the two leading causes is sexual frustration.

Islamic and sociological scholars are blaming the harsh rules on sexuality outside of marriage. Apparently, even kissing outside of marriage is condemned. While I'm sure that keeps their teen pregnancy rates down, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why the Egyptian people are frustrated.

In the Western world, we experienced similar troubles until the advent of birth control and the womens' lib movement. The difference was that in our society prior to that, divorce was still largely stigmatized and woman couldn't really work. Apply the same sexual rules to economically free couples who are able to get divorced whenever they want to, and you've got yourself a one-way ticket to splitsville.

Let's face it, if you tell a bunch of adolescents and young adults that they can't get past first base without getting married, you're going to see a lot of ill-advised weddings. What did they think was going to happen?

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The hand-wringing over Silda Wall Spitzer's future with her now defamed husband, the governor of New York, has officially begun. Newspapers, talk radio, TV pundits, therapists and armchair shrinks — yeah, that's you and me and all of us — all chipping in with our two cents.

Silda, Silda, Silda... Whatever was she thinking standing by her cheatin' hubby, the gov of New York? Well, she and the gov are married for 20 years. They have three kids together. She shelved her prestigious and lucrative legal career to raise the kids and to be a dutiful political wife. She's also a passionate philanthropist and organizer, having founded a children's advocacy program (Children for Children), among other activities.

This is a dynamic woman. She is no fool. Will her children, three beautiful girls, ever be able to trust the men in their lives? What message does it send to them if she stays?

All bets are off on Silda's marriage. Yep. In what's likely to become the Super Bowl of divorces, I anticipate a separation and divorce proceedings to begin within six to eight months, or at least before the end of 2008.

The two met in 2001 and married in 2006 in Costa Rica. A publicist for Pink simply said the pair had separated and "While the marriage is over, their friendship has never been stronger".

Yeah, everyone says they want to stay friends right after a breakup.

Rumors had been swirling about the marriage being on the rocks, probably mainly due to the couple rarely being seen in public together. Last August, Hart dismissed all the rumors as "just a bunch of trash talk".

It seems that it was their separate careers that perpetrated the split. Pink is working on a new album and will be returning to the studio soon, and Hart has been opening new nightclubs, the first of which is scheduled to open in May at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.

It would be nice to see the pair remain friends, but let's face it, nothing sours normally amicable people like divorce proceedings.

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I read a lot of news stories and columns about divorce, and I often find myself reading the same things over and over again. Similar stories, similar bits of advice and words of caution. So it really jumps out at me when I find something that offers a fresh perspective, and that was most definitely the case when I saw a column in a Michigan newspaper written by a high school senior who is a child of divorce.

What she had to say should resonate long and hard for any divorced parent, no matter what stage of divorce you're in. She writes about how her parents struggled to compromise as they worked to agree on a visitation schedule. As part of the process, the family was assigned a "friend of the court." Perhaps the most striking thing she wrote is that she never actually met the person who served in that official capacity.

When we talk about mediation here at FWW, it always seems to me like a foregone conclusion that whoever does the mediating would at least meet the children. The fact that it isn't a requirement is appalling. Perhaps there's a reason for it. Maybe the court doesn't want that person's decision-making process to be swayed by a child's undoubtedly emotional reaction. But you know what? I think that comes with the territory.

The writer goes on to say that by following the letter of the law, a parent could be thrown in jail if the visitation schedule isn't adhered to by all parties. And sometimes the visitations don't happen because emotions get in the way. Depending on how bitter and angry and resentful the parents are, the whole thing could easily be turned into a regrettable nightmare. But again, the most important message here is that you have a child of divorce telling you that nobody listened to her — mom, dad, the friend of the court — no one. She grew up feeling like she didn't have a role or a choice in what was happening to her family. She referred to herself as a prisoner of war.

Christine had requested that their case be transferred to reconciliation court, hoping that with some counseling, the marriage might be salvageable. Apparently she was mistaken. Her husband is standing by the statements he made when he said the marriage is "irretrievably broken".

Christine's attorney said that even if a reconciliation weren't possible, transferring the case could help in an equal division of property and debt and "determine the enforceability" of the prenup she signed. Hmm, sounds like there might be a battle in the works.

The case has been placed back on the regular court calendar, though when the two will be meeting has yet to be revealed.

Lute's attorney felt sure this was the outcome, saying nothing had changed since Lute filed his original divorce petition.

It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out, and what Christine might be whipping out to fight that prenup.

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The thing about limits is that they tend to inspire creativity. Take a Romanian attorney, for example.

Romania's laws prohibit lawyers from advertising. Now, for the moment, let's set aside the discussion about how this is a great idea and we should do it here too. The guy needed a way to get the word out about his services. He apparently handles divorce cases, so he had a bunch of mini-sized business cards printed up and had them stuck onto the outside of condom wrappers. And the condoms were sitting in a bowl on the front desk at a hotel.

For another moment, let's set aside the discussion of condoms being available in plain sight in hotel lobbies, like maps of local attractions, although we'd support this idea too!

Anyway, the idea is that people come to the hotel to have illicit affairs, so it's the perfect place to make sure they know legal help is available once they're found out. If only he was allowed to advertise, I could see the TV commercial now: "If you're having an affair, you need a condom ... and a lawyer!"

All it takes is a little ingenuity. Lawyers ... these are smart people!

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Gay marriage is in the news a lot lately. Where I live — in Ontario, Canada — gay marriage has been legal for a few years now. Even the most homophobic of Ontario citizens have simply gotten used to the fact that we consider all love equal.

In Scotland, though, the same can't be said. Bryan Morgan and Richard Brown of Saltcoats, Scotland, have filed for divorce just 18 months after their marriage. Apparently, they have been the victims of numerous verbal and physical attacks.

While it is tragic that gay men and women are the victims of verbal abuse, many have come to expect it. In no way do I condone verbal abuse, but gay people all over the world understand that people just aren't very tolerant. But physical abuse? Attacks and violence and vandalism? Where are the police?

"Gangs of up to 15 youths were outside shouting abuse, throwing bricks and trying to break my door down," says Bryan. Gangs now? Bricks?

Like pioneers for women's rights, religious rights, and ethnic rights, pioneers for gay rights are being persecuted just like others were in the most abominable times in human history. It shocks me that this behavior continues in a first world country with an apparent democracy. Whether these perpetrators like it or not, the Scottish government has made gay marriage legal.

I am disgusted.

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