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."

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.

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.

Britney Spears is finding, like the rest of us, that divorce can be expensive. Not only emotionally, but financially.

To resolve her custody dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline, the belly-baring singer had to pay her attorney $466,000 and his lawyers $250,000. Those bills are enough to give anyone a major bellyache.

Federline was granted full custody of their two sons but she does get overnight visits.

Spears and Federline married in 2004 and divorced last July. She is one of a growing number of women who pay "manimony" — Federline gets $20,000 a month from Spears.

But considering her immature antics, irresponsible behavior, and two hospitalizations, most saw Federline as a better alternative to parent.

However, news reports say that Spears is now expected to contest part of the legal bill as being too high.

According to Us Magazine, the largest bill comes from attorney Stacy D. Phillips, who says in court filings that she is owed nearly $407,000 for four months of work. Phillips claims she has written off another $125,000 in fees.

Phillips states in court documents the case was made more complicated because Spears is under the temporary conservatorship of her father, James. He took control of his daughter's personal and financial affairs after a series of high-profile incidents of erratic behavior and two hospitalizations.

Any payments will have to be approved by a Los Angeles court commissioner, and attorneys representing Spears' and her father's interests indicated last week in court they intend to contest Phillips' bill.

Diana Mercer, a California attorney who specializes in mediation, says she is sympathetic to Britney Spears’s lawyer.

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.

The BBC recently reported on an unusual circumstance for Egyptian divorce: a housing shortage. Affordable housing, to be exact.

Young couples in Cairo spends not weeks, not months, but years saving for an apartment in a soaring real estate market, and, according to a women's rights activists quoted in the piece, by the time a husband and wife can purchase a home and move in together, they're "sick of one another." Consequently, Egypt boasts a high newlywed divorce rate.

(Meanwhile, couples are doing just the opposite in the States. Those who would love to split up view divorce as a luxury — and are forced to stay together, burdened by the unbearable weight of decades-long mortagages and the crushing blows of the domestic housing market.)

Cairo has deemed it's situation a "marriage crisis," and measured are being taken to remedy the problem.

In fact, the housing crunch has inspired a "wealthy businessman" to give away an apartment for every day of Ramadan this September. Newly married couples will be chosen through a random drawing on an Egyptian game show; apparently, huge numbers have registered.

Since retiring from his 30-year stint as Johnny Carson’s sidekick on The Tonight Show, Ed McMahon has become best known for delivering oversized checks to the winners of the American Family Publishing sweepstakes.

But these days, any check signed by McMahon is likely to bounce sky high.

In early July, the octogenarian confirmed that he owed more than $644,000 in mortgage payments on his estate in Beverly Hills. McMahon’s financial woes, which he described as “a perfect storm," are the result of being unable to work since breaking his neck 18 months ago, the poor economy, and “a couple of divorces thrown in."

And now another divorce is giving him grief — his daughter’s.

According to a lawsuit filed in New York City, The former late night star owes $275,168 to attorney Norman Solovay, who he hired to handle his daughter’s divorce.

Well, to be precise, it wasn’t a divorce. It was a “matrimonial matter," according to Solovay’s own lawyer, Michael Shanker.

We’ll let you be the judge of what that means.

Is it possible that times are so bad, and divorce is so expensive, couples are staying together? It seems that divorces have moved into the luxury category, along with gas-guzzling cars, soy lattes at Starbucks, and big homes. Fine for those who can afford it.

That's what an article in the Newark Star-Ledger says, with statistics to prove it.

The number of couples signing on with mediators has fallen 21 percent in one year, according to Keila M. Gilbert, president of the Alpha Resource Center, a nonprofit divorce mediation network based in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Part of the reason, she thinks, is housing prices. If the home is a couple's only real asset, and it can't be sold, or it would be sold at a loss, that makes it very difficult to resolve a divorce.

Moreover, with some husbands and wives losing their jobs, or not being able to find work at their previous level, it becomes clear that it's a bad time to split up: all expenses will be higher for two separate households, starting with health insurance and ending with cable TV.

For couples who are barely making it now, divorce becomes a near impossibility.

A divorce mediator in Metuchin, New Jersey, Michael Grodjeski, said: "They end up getting stuck living together. It's not easy, but don't forget, couples who come to mediation tend to be more amicable about their divorce. They can continue to live together, not happily maybe, but they are trying to make the best of things."

Of course, for some women, divorce isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. It may mean renting their home out and keeping it in both names until the market improves, or it may mean biting the bullet and making a break. Even reduced circumstances are better than living in an unhappy home.

A June decision by the Canadian Supreme Court orders a wife to participate in her husband’s future financial losses. The National Post reports that it is only fair that if a wife can participate in a husband’s future earnings, based on their marriage, she also participate in his future debts, based on their marriage.

The trophy wives are on their way out in London. Thousands of jobs have been lost in the city's financial districts and rumors are flying that dozens more are on the way. The result? A trophy wife exodus.

Sandra Davis of Mishcon de Reya — the law firm formerly known as "Heather Mills' lawyers" — says that since the layoffs have started the number of inquiries about divorce and division of assets has tripled. "When money looks like [it's] flying out the window, love walks out of the door."

Paula Hall from Relate, a relationship counseling service, has a slightly less cynical view. "More financial stress will tend to show the cracks in marriage contracts which were either overtly or covertly financial in the first place."

Another Mishcon de Reya divorce attorney Miles Geffin thinks that the increase isn't just as simple as the trophy wives marching out the door while there are still assets to divide. He thinks that the working partner — in this case, the man — has just as much motivation to divorce under these circumstances as the woman.

"Businessmen who lose their job often see it as an opportunity to head straight off to the divorce court before they find a new job — so alimony payments will be based on their unemployed status."

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