The Washington Post recently reported on Japan's declining marriage rate. Short story: Men are looking to wives to take over maternal roles, and that scenario isn't very appealing to most single Japanese women:

"There is the rarely stated but almost universal expectation of Japanese men to be fed, clothed and picked up after. 'I am willing to take care of and give comfort to a man whom I care about, but that does not mean I want to be his mother,' she said."

In fact, WaPost found that women who had married were less likely than their male counterparts to remarry after divorce. The article states that post-divorce, men are unhappy and remarry quickly, while "the women are relatively happy and often delay remarriage." Perhaps it's the "burn me once" theory?

In addition to the lack of women looking to take on the mommy role, a stalled economy and a posh home life are keeping adult children in their parents' homes. A Calgary Herald piece from early August reported that Japanese parents — fed up with housing, feeding, and taking care of their single adult children — were taking matters into their own hands and organizing events exclusively for parents to find mates for their children.

"A government report from 2005 showed 71.5 percent of men aged 25 to 29 were unmarried, compared with 47.1 percent in 1990. For women, 32 percent from 30 to 34 years of age were single, compared with half that number in 1990."

With her bare hands! Pardon the exclamation points, but this is something out of a Stephen King short story. According to the LA Times, what was thought to be standard B&E is now turning out to be much more.

Fifty-one-year-old Susan Kuhnhausen returned home in September of last year to an intruder, hammer in hand, ready to bludgeon his victim. He did, in fact, get one blow in, but before he could do further damage, she wrestled the hammer out of his grip, then proceeded to strangle him to death.

Police have been investigating since the September attack, and recently uncovered a link between Kuhnhausen's ex-husband and the deceased attacker.

Investigators believe that Michael Kuhnhausen, distraught over the divorce, hired the attacker to kill his wife. Bits and pieces of a paper trail are slowly revealing that the attack was premeditated and Kuhnhausen to be the mastermind.

Michael Kuhnhausen was taken into custody and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder and held on $500,000 bail.

Fortunately, Susan Kuhnhausen is in the clear: Police say she acted in self-defense. She acted very well, indeed.

We mentioned earlier this month that former James Bond George Lazenby and his most recent wife, Pam Shriver, were getting divorced.

As we all know, it's part of the United States Constitution that all celebrity divorces need drama, intrigue, and gross accusations in order to be granted in a court of law. This one, however, is particularly interesting.

Lazenby's ex-wife is making accusations as well.

The Bond star and his first wife, Christina Mather, have been divorced for years. Now she's claiming that he broke her nose when she was five months pregnant, more than 30 years ago. Their daughter, now 34, claims he shoved her head into a toilet and held a gun to her head when she arrived home after her curfew. On this front, Lazenby admits to nothing more than totally ignoring his daughter from the time she was 12 because his younger son was dying of cancer.

Shriver, meanwhile, is claiming that he's drunk around their preschool children and tries to force-feed them alcohol. Lazenby, on the other hand, claims that Shriver is constantly high and drunk and drives the kids around while in a total stupor. Naturally, she says he's lying.

Some day I'd like to write about a celebrity divorce trial where one party completely and fully admits to the wrong-doing. "Yes, Your Honor, I did in fact sleep with the labor and delivery nurse while my wife was giving birth to the twins."

Football great Michael Strahan has been granted a Giant relief. A New Jersey state appeals court has ruled that he didn't have to pay $18,000 a month in child support of his 3-year-old twin daughters as part of his divorce settlement with his ex-wife, Jean.

But Jean isn't going to be shopping at the Dollar Store any time soon. In their bitter divorce, where nasty accusations flew like fumbling footballs, she caught a $15.3 million settlement, slightly more than what was specified in their prenuptial agreement. Strahan paid around half of that, and they recently settled a dispute over the remaining $6.5 million.

The court sent the child support case back to a lower court in Essex County and ordered it to recalculate the amount. Judge Lorraine Parker, one of the three judges involved in the decision, wrote, “Both parents have a shared obligation to support their children.”

In the decision, Judge Parker said that “as a healthy, educated, 41-year-old, [Jean Strahan] is capable of earning her own income.”

Perhaps Jean Strahan overstepped when she made certain claims for her daughters’ expenses, including $30,000 a year for landscaping, designer handbags, and $22,000 for baby pictures.

The three-judge panel also ruled that Strahan doesn’t need to pay for his wife’s lawyers, nor does he need to get a multi-million dollar disability policy.

Strahan announced yesterday that he has not accepted a request from the Giants to return to the team. Vacationing in Greece, he said he preferred to stay retired. It would have been his 16th season of professional football.

His salary would have been $8 million a year.

Instead he will receive a $2 million salary working for Fox Sports pregame Sunday show covering the National Football League.

Losing a job often means a spouse can’t afford to pay a divorce settlement. When Steven became Susan Stanton at age 48 after a sex-change operation, the Largo Florida City Commission fired Steven/Susan from his/her job as city manager — a job that paid $157,000.

The grounds: after 20 years on the job, and just when he decided to become a woman, they lost trust in him/her, and felt he/she was no longer leadership material.

That left Donna Stanton, the wife of the new Susan Stanton, in a quandary when they tried to figure out equitable distribution.

According to a story in “The Tampa Tribune” by reporter Stephen Thompson, and court documents, Steven/Susan Stanton amicably mediated his divorce from his wife of 18 years. The wife, Donna, would get $4,756 in alimony and an additional $799 a month in child support for their 15 year old son. Their marriage lasted 17 years.

Because Steven/Susan no longer has a job, he/she offered Donna Stanton a lump sum of $50,000 from his/her retirement account to cover the roughly first ten months of alimony.

That would make him current through December.

But — and here's the kicker — according to the settlement, if Steven/Susan doesn't get a job by then, even though he/now/she has applied for 100 city manager jobs, Donna Stanton is entitled to more from the retirement account.

One good thing: sex change and broken marriages make for great movies, or at least they did in 2003, when Tom Wilkinson starred with Jessica Lange in the highly-regarded television drama “Normal,” about a man who wants to become a woman after 25 years of marriage and two children.

Most American 8-year-old girls are thinking about The Suite Life with Zack and Cody and not a married life with a man in his fifties. But in Saudi Arabia, girls just can't have fun, and how they're treated is no laughing matter.

According to the BBC, an 8-year-old girl is pleading to a Saudi Arabian court for a divorce. She was married off to the man without her knowledge — by her father. (How do you say jerk in Farsi?)

Child-protection organizations say Saudi children are sometimes given away in return for large dowries, or as a result of beliefs that marriage to cousins or other known persons will protect young boys or girls from illicit relationships.

What should be illicit is selling a daughter before she becomes of age to make her own choices and treating her like property instead of a prized individual.

Now, following the publicity, the child's mother is reportedly asking for an annulment. Although women have limited power in Saudi Arabia, annulments have a precedent with underage children.

Last April, a court in neighboring Yemen annulled the arranged marriage of a 9-year-old girl to a 28-year-old man.

Perhaps the court of public opinion will help make a ruling in Saudi Arabia as well that young brides have an age requirement.

Most often, the government stepping in to the average citizen's life is not so much of a good thing. But what do you expect in Shanghai? But sometimes, stepping in isn't such a bad thing, after all. The Chinese city now offers divorce counseling free of charge to couples filing with Shanghai's Songjiang District, reports web site china.org.cn.

Since last June, all couples have had access to psychological consultants from the district's Psychological Consultant Association. Consequently, 30% have accepted the offer, and 70% of those couples have reconciled. Overall, more than 300 divorce petitions have been dropped.

And for the remaining husbands and wives who would like to proceed? The counselors help to negotiate custody and division of property. Did we mention this is free of charge?

China isn't the only country stepping up to the divorce-mediation plate. Australia's Family Relationship Centre offers "providing free information for families, the centre has qualified, professional staff to help families with the difficulties associated with separation or divorce," says the Manning River Times.

A spokesperson for the organization says she hopes families see the center as an alternative to court entirely.

Doesn't seem like such a bad idea, does it?

I have a secret. My name is Naomi, I am a journalist, and I don’t watch the news. I used to try and hide this fact, sort of skimming the headlines so I could fake my way through conversations involving current events. But I got a news alert today that tells me exactly why I am completely in the right. I am vindicated and I never have to watch the news again.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is a preacher. I’m not totally sure where “preacher” ends and “cult leader” begins, but that’s neither here nor there. In the beginning of his illustrious career, Miranda got famous because he convinced everybody that he was the second coming of Jesus.

Then he changed his mind and proclaimed he was no longer Jesus. He was the Antichrist.

His wife filed for divorce, although I can’t imagine why.

Since nobody knows exactly how much money the second coming of Christ has stuffed under the holy mattress, Miranda was ordered to pay interim alimony to the tune of $15,000 a month and he’s five months behind. He figured that instead of paying, he’d just disappear and go out on the lam. But what would you expect from the Antichrist? Post-dated checks delivered by courier?

The good news is that the preacher — and you know he’s a preacher because he has “666” tattooed on himself, as do his constituents — never physically abused his wife. She is, however, seeking compensatory damages from the emotional turmoil caused by his repeated threats that he’d send the “angels of destruction” on her and the kiddies.

And they ask me why I don’t watch the news.

Canadian web site globeandmail.com reported recently on what may be a national record. Nope, not the Olympics. The length and cost of a Vancouver couple's divorce proceedings.

Bernard Lotzkar and his former wife, Marian, appealed the $1 million legal bill that followed their 29-day court hearing. The former couple squabbled over everything from inheritances (justified) to gold coins (really?) to airline mileage points (oh, c'mon!).

The former Ms. Lotzkar's attorney "...billed her for 904 hours; his associate ... for 1,464 hours. Bills were also sent out for two lawyers who spent a total of 210 hours on research."

Just to put this in perspective, Britney's legal fees amounted to less than $750,000.

But who to top the Canadians than the Americans? Last year, a Connecticut couple spent 86 days in court and racked up a $13 million, according to The Hartford Advocate.

Let's hope we don't have more stories to file under "ridiculously expensive court cases" anytime soon.